


She Runs With Wolves and Lions

by SALStratton



Series: A Song of The Blood Wolf [1]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Jaime and Cersei broke up, Lyanna Reborn, OFC - Freeform, POV Original Female Character, She-Wolves Bite Back, There's another Stark, winter is coming
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-09
Updated: 2018-02-13
Packaged: 2018-05-19 06:31:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 26
Words: 106,983
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5957131
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SALStratton/pseuds/SALStratton
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>To the rest of Westeros, Lady Caryssa Stark was the true beauty of the North with a voice from the heavens. To her family, she was loving, kind and nurturing, and a fierce fighter. To strangers, she was cold like steel with a wall of ice around her heart that could not be broken. After marrying a Lannister, Caryssa learns what it is to be a wolf surrounded by lions. AU-ish.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Chapter One - Archery Lessons

“All things truly wicked start from innocence.”  
-Unknown

Winterfell

Caryssa watched as her little brother pulled the bow string until it was taught underneath his fingers, watched to make sure that he counted his breaths before he released the arrow. It sunk into a barrel just to the left of the target, and little Bran stamped his foot in frustration. Her other two brothers, Robb and Jon, circled him, before Jon put his arms around him.

Caryssa supposed that she should be doing something more lady-like. Such as knitting or sewing or planning the future wedding that she was inevitably to have, as she was now nineteen years old. After all, she was Lady Caryssa of House Stark, eldest child to Lord Eddard and Lady Catelyn Stark, the Beauty in the North. She hated that nickname. It always reminded her that she was seen as simply something to look at, a woman to marry a lord and bear his children. While she was not opposed to marriage, certain moments in her life had led to the belief that the only honorable men that still existed where those in her family and a few others in her household. So when she inevitably married, she did not want to marry some unpredictable stranger, but a man she knew had enough honor to respect her as a wife, a woman and a person.

So instead of sewing, Lady Caryssa was helping her brothers teach her second youngest brother archery, and thus far, they had been having very little success.

“Go on. Father’s watching and your mother,” Jon said, and Bran turned his head up to look at his parents standing on the balcony above, watching him with encouraging smiles. “Also, the Lady Archer watches, and as men, we cannot let our elder sister best us, Bran, or the other men will tease us relentlessly.”

Bran looked towards his sister, as she leaned against a fence, her bright blue Tully eyes watching him, a beautiful smile on her lips. His sister was the best archer in Winterfell, everybody knew it. Some didn’t like that a woman could wield a weapon, but most respected her for learning. Winter was coming, after all. Her smile turned into an encouraging one, a warmth in them that the woman only reserved for her family and loved ones, and she nodded at him to continue. 

So he strung his arrow to his bow, pulled it taut again and released it, and they watched it as it flew over the target and cleared the fence behind it. Jon, Robb and Rickon laughed at their brother, as Bran sighed, getting even more frustrated.

“And which one of you was a marksman at ten?” Ned Stark questioned his sons, as all his children there at the time stared up at him in silence. He watched as his daughter came into view, raising her hand, a smirk on her face. Ned shook his head at her, knowing that she was right, but choosing not to say anything. His eldest child, his precious daughter, had begged him when her sixth name day was approaching to have a bow of her own and to learn how to wield it. He never could deny her anything. Not only was she his eldest, his first born, but she reminded him so much of his dead sister. They were both untamable Stark she-wolves, fiercely protective of their own, beautiful, but deadly if opposed. “Keep practicing, Bran. Go on.”

Bran looked down, before he pulled strung his bow again. Except this time, long, pale fingers guided his hands, and he glanced behind him to see his sister.

“Remember what I taught you,” Caryssa murmured into his ear, as she moved his hand towards his mouth, pushing his elbow down slightly, and nudging his feet apart. “Anchor your hand, relax your bow arm, breathe slowly and count the beats of your heart. Between the beat, is when you should release the arrow.”

Caryssa stepped back, letting her younger brothers take control, and turned around to walk back to her leaning post, but spotted her younger sister, Arya, stringing a bow, getting ready to release the arrow. Caryssa immediately stepped to the side, out of her sister’s way, but continued to walk towards her. Arya released her arrow, before Bran could, and it whizzed through the air before it sunk straight into the middle of the target.

The men all turned around sharply, trying to see who had made the shot.

“Take your bows, sister.” Caryssa whispered to her, and Arya did so, curtseying and mocking her slightly younger brother. Caryssa’s eyes narrowed in on the twitch of Bran’s now clenched jaw, and stepped out of the way just before he threw his bow to the ground and launched himself at Arya, leaping over the fence and chasing her as she laughed and outrun him.

Caryssa laughed along with her brothers, moving to grab Rickon, settling him on her hip. 

“When can I learn archery like you and Bran?” Rickon questioned, and Caryssa chuckled at him, pressing her lips to his cheek. Caryssa was like a second mother to her younger siblings, apart from Robb and Jon as they were closer in age. She felt it was her duty as the eldest to help her mother raise her siblings, teaching them and guiding them through life. Especially with Sansa and Arya. Caryssa helped Sansa become the young, civilized lady that she was, whilst encouraging Arya’s wild personality as it reminded her of herself at that age. Catelyn Stark would say that if Caryssa were split into two different people, they would be Sansa and Arya.

“You, little pup, are too young, but when you are old enough, I promise that I will teach you.” Caryssa promised, smiling at the beaming boy, kissing his cheek again, before placing him onto his feet.

“Why do you always call me pup?” Rickon asked, and Caryssa began to run her fingers through his light auburn hair. 

“Because we are wolves, and you are the youngest. You are my pup, Bran, Arya and Sansa are my little wolves, Robb and Jon are my young wolves and I am the she-wolf. Mother is the Old She-Wolf and father is the Old Wolf,” Caryssa explained, smiling down at him as he gave her all of his attention. “We are the wolves of the North, Rickon, don‘t ever forget that. Now, let’s go help Robb and Jon collect the arrows.”

Rickon immediately set off, anything to impress his older siblings, and Caryssa watched with a soft smile, as her youngest brother bounced around, though stopped when he held the arrows in his grasp. He remembered that his sister had warned him about hurting himself on the sharp ends. He picked up a few before he rushed back over to his sister, and handed them to her. Caryssa took them, and handed them to a distracted Jon.

He was staring upwards, and Caryssa followed his line of sight to see that her mother was glaring disdainfully down at him. She gave her mother a disapproving look, like always, and placed her hand on Jon’s arm.

“We’re wolves, we’re strong and whether she likes it or not, you’re part of this family. You are my brother, Jon, not my father’s bastard, not my half-brother. You’re my brother. Do not ever let her make you feel any different.” She whispered, and Jon gave her one of his rare, beautiful smiles. Jon’s smiles only ever seemed to be reserved for Caryssa and Arya. Jon didn’t feel like he was a Stark, mostly because Lady Catelyn Stark seemed to push her husband’s war transgressions from him to his guiltless child.

They worked on, collecting the arrows and putting bows away, when Theon Greyjoy, ward of Lord Stark, approached the three eldest Stark (and Snow) children and smirked.

“Go get ready for a ride. An oath breaker is being held awaiting the King’s Justice. Bran is going with us as well.” Theon announced, and Caryssa and Robb exchanged a concerned glance. Well, she gave Robb a concerned look and he shrugged his shoulders. 

“He’s too young to experience such things.” Caryssa stated, and Theon gave her a smirk.

“You saw your first death when you were younger than Bran, if I remember correctly, Ryssa.” He said, watching with glee as her eyes steeled with her anger, and her jaw muscles clenched. 

“Speak of that again, Greyjoy, and your whore will have to find new business. Do we have an understanding?” Caryssa glared at the man, only a couple of years her senior, and he gulped, eyeing the dagger at her waist. Normally, she would carry a sword strapped to her hip, though she couldn’t really use one. Jory had tried to teach her when she was a little younger, but she could never quite grasp it, so had stuck to her bow and dagger. The sword was simply a warning to any man who thought that they could easily attack her. “Run along, Kraken. Go find Bran and get him ready. I’ll meet you all at the stables.”

Caryssa did not like Theon. While she usually tolerated his sense of humor, as crude as it was, he did not seem to have an ounce of propriety or decency. There were two moments in her childhood that were seemingly traumatizing. One was the first time she saw her father give the King’s Justice and she had been nine. The other no one dared discuss in front of her or Lord Stark, as it was both traumatizing and infuriating, and the very reason she carried a sword around with her.

She nodded to her brothers and stormed past Greyjoy, purposefully bumping shoulders with him roughly as she passed. Ryssa headed to her room, to put on a thick green wool dress, her fox fur cloak, pinning her wolf brooch to keep the material together, her leather gloves and to get her weapons. She tied her vambraces to her arms, and opened the oak trunk that held her weapons. 

She supposed it was unladylike for her to wield a weapon, but she had learned that while it was not appropriate for her to carry a weapon, she could still die upon one. Caryssa did not like being unprepared for anything, so she always slept with a knife under her pillow, and carried a dagger always.

She pulled out the new weirwood bow that her father had commissioned for her last namesday, and the quiver of arrows that had come with it. When she was finished collecting everything that was necessary, she strode from her room, and hurried to the stables.

Her horse was already saddled and waiting for her upon her arrival. Her horse was a beautiful snow white steed that she had received on her twelfth namesday, which is why the steed bore the highly original name of ‘Snow’. In truth, Caryssa had named her after Jon, because she wanted to show him how much she loved him, and always thought of him. Her father nodded to her from atop his horse, knowing that she was not happy that Bran was accompanying them, and she mounted her horse and followed him out of the stables. 

She just hoped that Bran was as ready to see the execution of a man, deserter though he may be, as the men believed him to be. 

~*~


	2. Stags, Direwolves and Ravens

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The eldest Stark children watch a deserter of the Night's Watch beheaded and Caryssa believes she has found an omen in the woods. A raven arrives for Ned and he and Caryssa discuss it's contents.
> 
> It's kinda a slow chapter, but it picks up later on.

Do not seek death. Death will find you,  
But seek the road which makes death a fulfillment.  
-Dag Hammarskjöld

Chapter Two – Stags, Direwolves and Ravens

Winterfell

A large group of twenty two riders rode to watch a man be punished as a deserter and oath-breaker. Twenty one men, and one woman. It was Bran's first time seeing his lord father carry out the king's justice, and the woman of the convoy was less than happy about it.

Robb Stark's eyes kept flittering to his sister as she rode sullenly beside him, the only sound coming from her direction being Snow occasionally tossing his head. He knew that she was worried about Bran, about what their father had told them of the oath breakers claims. He also knew that half the guards that were accompanying them, and Theon, would watch his sister as she rode her horse, and by the looks in their eyes he could tell that they were picturing something else entirely.

Robb knew what people said about his elder sister. The Beauty of the North, the Northern Nightingale, they called her, and she was, beautiful in both body and voice, but Robb did not like that everyone else knew about it. They would say that her beauty easily rivalled the Queen's, and outmatched all of the women in the North, but it didn't mean that their compliments made Robb, or Caryssa for that matter, happy.

Caryssa and Robb often described themselves as two halves of a whole, twins even. They loved each other, needed each other, not in a romantic sense, but in the way a person loves and needs their own soul. Robb and Caryssa may have been two years apart in age, but they were kindred spirits, both bound by duty as the eldest children of their house to mature before their time and help their parents to run the land.

So when Robb caught men ogling the other half of him, his dear sister, it frustrated him, even though he knew that it couldn't be helped. Caryssa truly was the Beauty of the North, what with her glorious dark mane of hair, her icy blue eyes and perfect, porcelain skin. He knew that his father had been ignoring proposals of marriage on her behalf for quite a few years. Caryssa was a true daughter of the North, a she-wolf, wild and untameable, cold and fierce. She didn't want marriage so soon in her life.

His sister had always told him that she deemed marriage to be a cage, and that wolves did not do well in cages, though she accepted her fate. She was a beautiful high-born lady of a noble house, and she would have to marry someday to solidify ties between their house and another. It was just the way things were. They both dreaded that day, as she would have to leave Winterfell and join her husband wherever he may be, and they would be lost without each other. They had never been separated before and would not welcome the day they were.

"I don't like this. Bran is too young." Caryssa said, unknowingly breaking her brother out of his thoughts of her. She turned her gaze to him, her blue eyes always seeming as though they could see into the very depths of a man's soul, and found his eyes already on her.

"We were much younger than Bran when we first witnessed the King's Justice. We survived it, and you're a girl, for pity's sake! Bran will be fine!" Robb pointed out, and Caryssa rolled her eyes at him, before sighing.

"We are different to Bran. We are the eldest. We needed to be steeled for the harsh realities of this world. I will be a wife one day to a great lord or knight, and you will be Lord of Winterfell," Caryssa grimaced, thinking of her bleak future. "Bran doesn't have the same responsibilities as we do."

"Winter is coming, Ryssa. You know that." Robb replied, and Ryssa glared at him.

"I know our words, brother, but that does not mean that I have to like it, or this." Caryssa snapped, turning her face away from him to gaze ahead, realising that they were nearing their destination.

Neither Stark said anything as their father and the rest of the party to their destination; twenty men and one woman travelling to see a beheading of a deserter. Ryssa looked forwards, and caught sight of her lord father. Lord Eddard Stark rode grimly forward, his long-ish brown hair stirring in the wind. Caryssa noticed that her father looked tired, older. He never enjoyed delivering the king's justice. Usually he was laughing. Surrounded by his children, his wife, his trusted friends, Ned Stark would laugh and it would light up his face, but more recently, Caryssa noticed, he looked very much like the other miserable lords she had heard of. 

He was more grim in the face of the impending Winter.

When the northerners did reach their destination, Caryssa stood herself behind Bran, next to Robb, but before Jon, waiting as the oath breaker was brought forward. Ryssa took in the traitor as he shifted forward, muttering about the white walkers. She noticed that he looked very beaten, in every sense of the word, with cracked lips and an altogether haggard exterior. 

It made Caryssa wonder what he had truly seen. Most men who took the Black understood the consequences of breaking their vow, and very few men ran away. Most were rapers or murderers or thieves who would otherwise lose a body part or their life, so gladly chose to freeze their arses off on the Wall. So whatever the man had seen, Caryssa mused, must have been worse than the harsh temperatures or a beheading.

Ryssa listened as the deserter spoke to her father, of the white walkers (which sent chills down her spine, shivers of dread), of his family and how he was no coward. Throughout the whole speech, Ryssa's face as a mask of cold indifference, one which Robb and Jon quickly learned to adopt. When he was finished, she watched her father nod to Theon, who brought him his sword, and the guardsmen forced the deserter to his knees in front of the weirwood stump, already stained with the blood of other oath breakers and traitors.

"In the name of Robert of the House Baratheon, the first of his name, King of the Andals and the First Men, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms and protector of the realm, I, Eddard of the House Stark, Lord of Winterfell and Warden of the North, sentence you to die." Her father muttered the same speech he always had to, and Caryssa braced herself.

Yet, as Lord Stark raised his sword, Caryssa wrapped her arms around Bran's shoulders, unable to contain her need to support him. She felt his body tense, and his heart race underneath her hands, as their father swung his sword. With one easy swing, the man's head dropped to the floor, staining the ground with red. 

Caryssa stared, transfixed on the spot where the earth was now greedily drinking the blood of the dead, before she blinked, letting her brother go, but leant down towards him.

"You did well, little wolf. I am proud of you." Caryssa whispered into his ear, before placing a small kiss on the top of his head.

She was the first to walk away, never having liked the sight of the dead. She mounted her steed, and waited for her father to finish talking to Bran, most likely regurgitating the same speech he had given her, Robb and Jon on their own first times. 'The man who passes the sentence should swing the sword', a line that she had always remembered since.

Once her father mounted his horse, they were off again, heading back to Winterfell. Caryssa rode at the head of the party, instead of with Robb, and her brothers noticed immediately.

"Why is Caryssa riding so far ahead? Why is she not riding beside you?" Bran questioned Robb, as all four Stark men, and a Greyjoy, watched the lone woman atop her snowy white horse.

"Women are complicated creatures, little lord, and it never ends well to start questioning them." Theon remarked, and Robb wanted to give him a dirty look, that was his sister he was talking about, but knew that Theon told the truth. Women were complicated creatures, something he knew all too well living with four of them.

"While your sister is fierce when she is training with your brothers, Bran, she also has a gentle soul. She does not like death," Lord Stark told his son, who nodded at him, as if he heartily agreed with his sister. Death was not something enjoyable in the little boy's eyes. "She is the perfect balance of warrior and maiden. She is strong and gentle, wise and wilful, wild and contained. She will make a challenging woman to be wed to."

"She doesn't want to leave Winterfell." Robb said quickly, as though he were trying to dissuade his father from any further thoughts of marrying his sister off to some old lord somewhere far away.

The men rode in silence from then on, their eyes watching the woman galloping ahead of them. The eldest of the men, like Lord Stark and the Cassel men, were taken aback, still to this day, at the likeness between the late Lady Lyanna Stark and the eldest Stark daughter. Caryssa was so much alike Lyanna, both in body and in soul, while little Arya resembled her long, dead aunt in her wild, untameable personality. Caryssa possessed Lyanna's beauty, which worried Lord and Lady Stark (and their eldest son) immensely. 

The Lady Lyanna's beauty had started a rebellion, and ended with her untimely, bloody death.

That was the reason his daughter was still unmarried.

Ned did not want to lose his daughter the same way he lost his dear sister.

"Father!" Caryssa's startled voice called to him, breaking him out of his silent reverie.

The men sped forward, catching her up as she dismounted across a stone bridge, having stopped in front of a dead stag with its stomach ripped open. The lady was inspecting the area around the stag, when the men dismounted as well, eyeing the dead creature with interest. Her father approached it, his eyes flickering from the stag to his daughter. She looked upset, but her sparkling blue eyes betrayed her burning curiosity.

"What is it?" Jon questioned their father.

"Mountain lion?" Theon suggested, though it was only slightly plausible.

"There are no mountain lions in these woods." Lord Stark replied, dismissing his ward's theory, and then he noticed his daughter had begun to walk into the forest, her eyes scanning the ground. His own eyes dropped to the ground, and noticed the blood trail that led to where Caryssa was heading. Thankfully, she had drawn her dagger from its sheath, ready to defend herself. Ned followed his daughter, his three sons and his other men following behind him, all withdrawing their swords.

He heard his daughter gasp, and he quickened his pace, until he spotted her crouched by a very different, very wrong, very dead animal. Ned and Jon crouch down in front of the beast, either side of the woman.

"It's a freak."

"Oh, and I suppose a kraken isn't a freak? This, Greyjoy, is a direwolf." Caryssa snapped at him, not taking her eyes off the beautiful, dead creature and her six adorable pups.

"Tough old beast." Her father said, yanking the horn of the stag out of the dead mother's chest. Caryssa flinched slightly, as her father tossed the horn over his shoulder and she felt the breeze of it as it flew past her. A dead stag's horn in the neck of a dead direwolf…Caryssa could only take that as an omen, but didn't voice her dark thoughts aloud, lest she be laughed at by the men for being too superstitious.

"There are no direwolves south of the Wall." Robb stated, as though the scene in front of him became completely inaccurate just by that knowledge alone.

"Now there a six," Jon said, picking one up and passing it to Bran. Ned watched as his daughter picked up a pup of her own, an almost pure white one with patches of grey spotted randomly on its coat, smiling at it as it attempted to lick her face. His wife was not going to like this. "You want to hold it?"

"Where will they go? Their mother's dead." Bran said, already growing attached to the adorable creature in his arms.

"They don't belong down here." Ser Rodrik said, and Caryssa's head snapped towards the man, a sinking feeling in her stomach, and she clutched the pup closer to her heart at the implication. He surely wasn't suggesting what she thought he was suggesting, was he?

"Better a quick death. They won't last without their mother." Her father said, standing, and Caryssa's eyes widened, before she turned to glare at Greyjoy as he almost gleefully jumped down beside Bran and reached out to take the pup in the boy's arms.

"Right. Give it here."

"No!" Bran cried, as Theon snatched the direwolf pup.

"Put away your blade." Robb ordered, and Theon looked at him, scoffing at his 'future lord of Winterfell' tone of authority. It was one of the reasons that Caryssa had always hated Theon. His family were traitors, and her father had taken him in as a kindness, yet he managed to become entitled and arrogant regardless. It infuriated her to no end.

"I take orders from your father, not you." Theon replied, and went to say more until he felt the cold feel of steel at his throat. He turned his head slowly to spy the Lady Archer holding her sword at his neck, a pup in her free hand and a deadly ice in her eyes that spelled trouble for him if he did not comply.

"That may be, but not even the King will be able to save you if you do not put away your blade, Greyjoy. Just remember, there is no place on this earth where you could hide that I would not find you," Her voice retained the pleasant, soft quality it always had, but had a dark, deadly tone to it that sent shivers down all of the men's spines. There was nothing more frightening than an angry woman, especially an angry Stark woman. "Give the pup back to Bran or lose your head."

Theon masked his own apprehension, but didn't relinquish his hold on the pup. He was waiting orders from his lord, who had a look on his face that was a cross between amusement at his daughter's threats and irritation that she was threatening his ward yet again. He knew that there was no love lost between the pair, but he had hoped that it would eventually get better as they grew older. Yet it seemed that they had only gotten worse with age. Or at least Caryssa had. As his daughter grew more beautiful with each passing year, he had noticed his ward take more notice of her, but he was just one of many who did, and more likely had less chance than the butcher's son.

"Lord Stark!" Jon called, as their father was walking away, getting his attention. "There are six pups. One for each of the Stark children. Three males, three females. The direwolf is the sigil of your house. They were meant to have them."

Caryssa didn't lower her blade until she was certain her father was going to concede to their wishes. Even then she didn't lower her blade until after he had finished telling them that the pups were going to be trained by them, and that they alone would bear the responsibility for their fates. Once Theon had passed Bran his pup back, he looked pointedly at the sword still held to his throat.

"Aren't you going to put this away, before someone gets hurt?" Theon questioned, and Caryssa arched a brow at him.

"As you wish, but next time, perhaps I won't hesitate," Caryssa smirked darkly at him, before turning her attention to Jon, who was direwolf-less. "We can share this pup. I don't feel right having one when you do not."

"I'm not a Stark." Jon replied, and tried to ignore the upset look on his sister's face. He knew that it hurt her when he himself separated himself from her family with harsh words, because in her eyes, he was much of as Stark as she was.

She turned her back on him, and began the short trek to her mare, until she noticed that Jon had not followed the rest of them. She twisted her head to look back, and saw that John had a pure white, tiny direwolf in one hand.

"The runt of the litter. That one's yours, Snow." Theon said, smirking at him.

"Close that needless hole you call a mouth, Greyjoy. Shit keeps falling out of it." Caryssa said, resuming the short journey back to her horse, leaving her three brothers and the idiot Theon behind her. She sheathed her sword, and put it back into her saddlebags, and then awkwardly remounted her horse with the pup in one arm. As soon as she managed to get herself seated comfortably again in her saddle, the direwolf pup yipped excitedly and caused Caryssa to laugh.

"I shall name you…Rhaenyra." Caryssa said to the pup and it barked happily at her in response.  
Winterfell would not know what hit it when they brought these direwolf pups home.

~*~

Her mother came to her with news from King's Landing. Caryssa was then sent to the Godswood to break the bad news to her father. Ned Stark and his eldest daughter were always close, being that she was his firstborn, and were each other's confidantes. Catelyn was always there for her husband, in all things, but sometimes, she knew, he needed his daughter's comfort more than hers. Caryssa was softer than she was, more comforting, more like the cold, falling snow than the harsh, freezing ice. So instead of going to the Godswood herself - she still felt like an outsider in front of the old gods, despite having six Northern children - she sent her daughter, knowing that she could break the news gently.

So Caryssa made the trip to the woods alone, listening to the soft crunching of the fallen leaves under feet and staring at the small scroll in her hand. Her father was sitting in front of the Heart Tree, cleaning his sword, Ice, from the earlier execution. He never failed to feel guilty after an execution, especially when it came to men who had fled from the Wall and their vows out of fear, like the man today had.

He didn't look up, though she knew he had heard her approach.

"I can still remember the first time I came out here to find you cleaning your sword. You placed it on the ground, pulled me up onto your knee and told me that you were going to ride off into a war." Caryssa said, a soft, sad smile played on her lips as she remembered that particular memory.

Ned looked up at his daughter as she strolled ever closer to him, her blue Tully eyes not on him, but on something far away, lost in her own memory. He remembered that moment too, being one of his hardest moments. Leaving behind his wife and two year old had been difficult for him, harder than he had expected it to be. Even as she toddled around, a precious little dark haired babe, she had been far too intelligent for him to just leave and come back without her notice. He'd had to explain to her, his small, beautiful girl, that he had a duty to his friend, that he had to ride into a war to remove a mad king from his throne, to save his sister, her aunt. He remembered how she had cried silently, her large, wide eyes making him feel the most incredible guilt.

"I'm surprised you remember, you were still only a babe." Ned replied, watching her as she seemed to glide towards him, her eyes now fixed on the tall, white Heart Tree behind him. Caryssa always seemed at home in the woods, in nature, and he had always assumed it was due to the Northern blood that ran through her veins.

"I remember the pain of it, but also the pride. My father…saving the realm from the evil king. I worshipped you, you know," Caryssa smiled widely, finally turning her gaze to her lord father, a twinkling of amusement in her unusually sad eyes that made a smile spread on his face. "A fearsome, intimidating warrior, a man that men would gladly fight and die for. I may have been but a child, but I was always proud of you, father."

"As I have always been of you, daughter."

It was only then did Ned spy the rolled up parchment in between her hands, and her sad expression, but it wasn't sadness for herself. It was for him, he noticed. Caryssa saw where his gaze had gone to, and looked down at her hands, fiddling with the parchment.

"I'm so sorry, father." She said simply.

"Tell me."

"There was a raven from King's Landing. Jon Arryn is dead. A fever took him. I know how dear he was to you. It says it was quick, he didn't suffer too much." Caryssa said, emphasising the last of her words, trying to give her father that small comfort.

"Your aunt, the boy?" Ned questioned, pushing his own grief, as debilitating as it was, aside for the moment, needing to know that Jon Arryn's family were well and looked after.

"They both have their health, gods be good," Caryssa said, as she took a seat on the only stone seat left in front of the Heart Tree, close enough for her to reach out to her father should he need her. He remained stoic, working through his emotions quietly in the same solitary way he always had, the same way she had learned to. "The raven brought more news."

Her father's head snapped back towards her, and she gave him a moment, before she continued to speak.  
"The king rides for Winterfell, with the Queen, his children and all the rest of them."

"If he's coming this far north, there's only one thing he's after." Ned replied, looking towards his daughter, whose face had become an emotionless mask. She had perfected that over the years, withholding the emotions that she thought would only add to the burdens already on his shoulders, he knew. They were always open with each other, but his daughter was always a complicated character.

"My father…the Hand of the King. Winter is truly coming," Caryssa said, her voice hiding her emotions as well as the stoic expression of her face. "You could always say no, father. King Robert would understand."

"Only a fool says no to a king." Her father replied, and she shook her head at him.

"No. Only a fool would walk willingly into the lion's den."

Both father and daughter knew that while Robert was king, it was the Lannister's who had overall control, with their money and their lioness on the throne as Queen. Aye, a man, or woman, would surely be a fool to walk into the lion's den, and the Stark's were not fools.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi!
> 
> So, this story was originally posted on fanfiction.net, but due to a problem on that site, I'm moving the story over here. I hope you guys all enjoy it as much as my FF fans do.


	3. The She-Wolf and the Lion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Amid such contrary winds, in a frail bark, I find myself at sea without a tiller, so light of wisdom, so laden with error, that I myself do not know what I want; and I shiver in midsummer, burn in winter." 
> 
> \- Petrarch

The King was coming to Winterfell, and was now only hours away. 

Caryssa was unsure how she felt about it. After all, it would mean that her father, and possibly some of her younger siblings, would have to leave Winterfell and go to King’s Landing. Half the wolves would be leaving the den before winter came, and, in her opinion, that was just plain foolish. 

She’d had to help her mother with all the preparations so she hadn’t been able to spend much time with her brothers and sisters. She, Arya and Bran hadn’t done much archery, she and Robb hadn’t been out riding recently or spending nearly every waking moment together, she and Jon hadn’t sat in companionable silence or had their quiet, private conversations about everything and nothing all at the same time, and she and Sansa hadn’t spent time talking about princes, knights and fairytale romances for quite some time. 

Consequently, Caryssa found herself tired and dreadfully bored. 

Which is why when the morning came for the King’s expected arrival, she was dressed quickly in a pale blue dress, one Sansa had made for her, made of thick blue cotton with blue lace and blue silk over the top to make it look prettier. Sansa had a better eye for making beautiful things than Caryssa had. Caryssa could sew well enough to mend clothes and make shirts for her father and brothers, but dresses and gowns were far beyond her skill.

Her mother had come in to her room early that morning and brushed her long, silky raven locks, deciding to just leave her slightly waved hair to just fall to her lower back with a couple of small braids at the front to keep her hair out of her face, promising they’d do something more elaborate for the feast that night. 

Today, her mother had decided, they would leave first impressions to be made by her natural beauty.

Caryssa was now pulling her cloak across her shoulders, resettling her necklace around her neck, and making sure that her direwolf brooch hadn’t been moved or twisted where it was pinned on her dress, just under her bosom. Once she had deemed herself suitable, she went to make sure that youngest children were ready. Sansa would have undoubtedly been dressed and waiting impatiently for a couple of hours now, and Robb, and Jon were capable of seeing to themselves. No, Caryssa headed to Arya’s room, making sure she was dressed, her hair wasn’t a wild mane and her face was clean. 

Arya groaned and moaned, and fought her the whole way, but soon became cooperative once Caryssa promised to practice her fighting skills when she had a moment to spare. 

“Remember you promised. I’m only letting you play doll with me because you promised you’d convince Jory to give me sword lessons. I hate acting like a girl, it‘s so…Sansa.” Arya said, before letting out a yelp when Caryssa accidentally tugged her hair too sharply as she braided it. The elder girl muttered an apology, before continuing her mission.

“Just be thankful it was me who came looking for you, little wolf. Had it been Septa Mordane, the hair pulling would have come with a lecture and nothing beneficial for you at all. You have gotten the better bargain, Arya,” Caryssa pointed out to her, as she tied the last of the third braid she had just finished, after having twisted one into a bun in the middle of her head, and draping the other two over her shoulders. “There. Done. Now, put on your cloak and I’ll let you wander around the castle, until the king is in sight.”

Arya beamed, before rushing with Nymeria to grab her cloak.

With one little wolf done, Caryssa went to find Bran. She checked his room, and upon finding him missing, she knew exactly where he would be. She strode off, venturing outside, eyes on the walls, Rhaenyra suddenly at her heels. She had left her in the kitchens that morning, the kitchen staff happily playing with her and feeding her scraps that wouldn’t be used for the feast that night, but apparently the pup, that had grown twice her size in the month Caryssa had had her, had been kicked out and had searched the castle for her mistress. 

Rhaenyra seemed to find her brother before Caryssa spotted hers, as the pup suddenly darted forwards, leaving Caryssa to follow in amusement. The little unnamed direwolf (Bran had yet to decide on one) was sat, tail wagging, staring up at a tower and Caryssa rolled her eyes as she immediately understood where her little wolf was. 

It seemed her mother, who was blowing through the castle like a storm, with Maester Luwin following dutifully behind her, also spotted the direwolf and then her son, who was swinging down the side of the tower like it was second nature to him. Which it was. Caryssa liked to joke that Bran was more monkey than wolf sometimes. 

“Brandon!” Catelyn Stark called, and Bran’s dark head snapped to the location of the voice, and Caryssa laughed. He didn’t slip once. Her little wolf was always so surefooted and nimble.

“I saw the king. He’s got hundreds of people.” Bran said, excitedly, as he continued to lower himself down the side of the castle wall.

“How many times have I told you? No climbing.” Catelyn scolded her son, whilst Caryssa tried to hide her amused expression, so that she didn’t undermine her mother’s parenting. Bran would never stop climbing. He just wouldn’t.

“But he’s coming right now, down our road.” Bran replied, dropping to the thatch roof, before he continued his descent. Caryssa moved forward to pluck him down from a beam, kissing his cheek and laughing at him, before setting him down, before he could fuss about her showing him sisterly affection. Bran was a stubborn child that wanted to be treated like a man, like his two elder brothers. He didn’t enjoy his sister’s more motherly affections. 

Catelyn bent over to be at eyelevel with her son, looking into his dark eyes with her light ones, and trying to convey her seriousness.

“I want you to promise me, no more climbing.” She insisted.

Bran looked down at his feet, a sign that he was lying, and Caryssa’s lips curled up into a smirk.

“I promise.” Bran said, as his mother straightened, looking more amused by his ‘solemn vow’ than he had expected. He looked up at his sister, standing at his side, and noticed the same amused expression his mother wore, which just confused him.

“Do you know what?” Catelyn asked.

“What?” Bran questioned, still suffering from his confusion.

“You always look at your feet before you lie,” Caryssa stated, ruffling his hair as they chuckled together. Their mother smiled warmly at her children, and then told Bran to go and tell his father that the king was close. Bran rushed off, with his direwolf pup in tow, and Caryssa turned to her mother. “He won’t stop climbing. He’s a Northern spirit. He follows his feet and his curiosity. He’ll grow out of it one day, though.”

“You haven’t. Your father told me that you were the one that found the direwolf puppies. You will make an interesting wife for a great lord someday. He would not know what to do with your curiosity.” Her mother said, giving her that same exasperated look she always did. The one that made her feel slightly bad for being a slightly difficult daughter. She took after the Stark side than she did the Tully’s, apart from her blue eyes. The wilderness of the North ran through her veins, she could not help it any more than she could help breathing.

Her mother didn’t say anything more on the subject, simply gesturing for her to follow and Caryssa did as she was told.

They dropped Rhaenyra off in her room. Her mother had deemed it ‘an accident waiting to happen’ for the direwolves to join them in greeting the King and his entourage, so they would be left in their rooms. They then went to gather everyone. Caryssa hunted Robb, Jon and Theon, thankful that they were dressed and ready when she found them in Robb’s room.

“The King approaches. Mother wants us to go and get-Did you shave?” Caryssa questioned, seeming to forget all of her mother’s instructions upon seeing all three of the young men without any of their usual facial hair.

“Your mother made us.” Jon said, clearly not happy, as his fingers toyed with his shorter hair. Jon loved his hair, the dark, unruly curls that reminded him he was a Northman, a Stark. His curls came from his father’s family, one of the things that connected him to his family. 

Caryssa walked further into the room, towards Robb, and cupped his face between her hands and smiled widely at the softness of skin underneath her fingers. Seeing his face shaved reminded her that he was actually younger than her, that he was still only ten and six years old, and not a true man. 

“I remember this boy. You look so much younger now, much more like the little brother who used to cling to my skirts, while he tried to toddle around after me.” Caryssa teased him, planting a noisy kiss on his cheek, laughing and enjoying his embarrassment as he batted her hands away from him. He probably felt some sort of relief when she moved onto Jon.

“Your hair still looks wonderful, Jon. A lot less wild. The Southern women shall fall at your feet, brothers,” Caryssa said to them, affectionately ruffling Jon’s hair, and kissing his forehead. She smiled at them, her two boys, not Theon, before gesturing to the door. “Now come along. We need to be standing with father when the King arrives.”

Robb and Jon rose together, and held their arms out to her. She took them both, looping her arms through theirs, and together the three eldest Stark children (Caryssa refused to discredit Jon’s validity as a Stark) walked to the castle gates where their family waited for them. 

Caryssa took her place as the eldest next to her father, with Robb beside her and Sansa beside him. Bran was at the very end. Rickon, as the youngest, stood beside their mother, whilst Jon and Theon stood behind them, as they were not considered (by Lady Stark) to be a part of the family. Caryssa noticed the lack of Arya’s presence before her mother did, but she did not worry as she knew that Arya was most likely getting a closer look before joining them. 

“Where’s Arya? Caryssa, Sansa, where’s your sister?” Their mother questioned, and both girls shrugged.

As though she knew that her name had been mentioned, Arya hurried forward, trying to sneak the helmet she wore past her father, but he grabbed her arm and stopped her in front of him. 

“What are you doing with that on?” He questioned, pulling it off the girl’s head. Robb and Caryssa chuckled at her, as the girl groaned when her father sent her to her place in line. Caryssa watched her father pass the helmet backwards to Ser Rodrik, before they all stared forwards again, waiting. 

The visitors suddenly poured through the gates, a river of gold and silver, and both the banners of House Baratheon and of House Lannister fluttering in the Northern winds. Together, stags and lions rode forth into the cold den of the wolves.

Caryssa instantly recognized the prince, though she had never seen him before. Sansa had talked about him often enough, though she had only heard talk of him too, that Caryssa felt as though she could pick him out in a crowd of a hundred men. He was not as handsome as her sister and many others described. Caryssa felt a nudge at her side, and looked at Robb, who gestured to Sansa. Their little sister was staring adoringly at the prince, who was giving her similar looks. Neither Robb nor Caryssa were pleased about that particular development. The prince was flanked by a member of the Kingsguard, and the Hound, if his armor were anything to go by. 

Caryssa caught eyes with the knight cloaked in white and gold, and recognized him. Jaime Lannister was his name, the Queen’s twin brother. A smirk settled on his face as he caught her staring, but she did not look away like he obviously expected her to. Caryssa’s blue eyes stayed fixed on his green ones, and scrutinized the lion. She suddenly felt like all those stories she had heard whispered about the handsome oath breaker did not do him justice. 

~*~

Jaime Lannister wondered why the eldest Stark girl had not turned away when he had caught her staring at him. Most women did, often blushing as they did so, but not this one. She just kept staring, her ice blue eyes seeming to search his for something that neither of them knew what, until disinterest flashed in her eyes. He saw it. She was not interested in him, and dismissed him without a word or greeting. Jaime was not used to such a rejection, and from a woman he had yet to talk to, and that interested him all the more.

~*~

Caryssa’s eyes were drawn away from the Kingslayer by a wooden coach adorned with red and gold, flying the banners of House Lannister, was drawn in next, and Caryssa guessed that some of the ladies of the court, and the Queen, were within. Caryssa could think of nothing worse than being stuck inside a dark carriage for hours upon hours instead of riding on horseback, as free as the wind. 

A man flanked by more of the Kingsguard rode in next, and Caryssa assumed that it was the king, though he was nothing like her father had described. Ned Stark had described a tall, slim, fearsome warrior, but the man who they were knelt before now was shorter and fatter, not one bit the brilliant soldier he had once been. It was disappointing to say the least. Caryssa kept her eyes to the ground, when everyone bent the knee at the sight of the king, but heard clearly the king’s footsteps as he approached them. 

He stopped right in front of her father, and then gestured for them to rise. Ned Stark rose first, his wife, his children and the rest of his house following after him. Caryssa kept her face down, her eyes on the ground at her feet. Her father had warned her that he did not know what the king’s reaction would be to her, as she looked so much like her aunt, the woman the king loved. So until it was her turn to greet the king, she would keep her eyes on the ground so her father could greet his old friend properly.

“Your Grace.” Her father said, bowing his head in respect. 

“You’ve got fat.” The king said, and Caryssa bit her lip to stop herself from laughing as she saw, out of the corner of her eye, her father nod his head at the king’s swollen stomach. 

Both men laughed, and then embraced each other warmly, and Caryssa smiled at her brother as she looked towards him, still keeping her head low. The king then embraced their mother, and ruffled Rickon’s hair affectionately. 

“Nine years…Why haven’t I seen you? Where the hell have you been?” The king questioned his old friend.

“Guarding the North for you, Your Grace. Winterfell is yours.” Their father said. Caryssa heard Arya ask where the ‘Imp’ was, referring to the Queen’s younger brother, Lord Tyrion Lannister, and heard Sansa promptly tell her sister to shut up. 

“Who have we here?” The king questioned, and Caryssa could feel his eyes on her, and knew the time had come and braced herself inwardly, as she lifted her head to look upon her king.

She saw the shock in his face, and heard his withdrawn breath, and knew that he had made the connection between her and his late love. Caryssa just raised her chin slightly, refusing to back down now, and kept his gaze despite the many eyes that were now questioning why the king had had such a reaction to the Northern Lady and the thumping of her anxious heart in her chest.

“Lyanna?” He questioned, and Caryssa shook her head, looking to her father for help.

“Lyanna Stark was my aunt, your grace.” She said, her voice a little breathy as she was nervous as to what his next actions would be.

“This is Caryssa, my eldest. She was but a babe the last time you saw her.” Ned explained to his friend, and the Baratheon king nodded, his eyes still on Caryssa. 

“By the Gods, Ned, she looks like your sister,” Robert said, before clearing his throat and taking Caryssa’s hand, lifting it to his lips and placing a gentle kiss on it. He quickly let her hand fall, and moved on down the line of Stark children. Caryssa refused to follow the king with her eyes, but instantly regretted it as she caught the cold green eyes of the queen. Cersei Lannister glared at the ghost who now haunted her in the flesh, but broke the gaze when she saw that the Stark girl would not. Caryssa was too stubborn to cower to a Lannister, no matter what her station. “You must be Robb.”

The king shook her brother’s hand, and drew Caryssa’s attention again. She smiled at Robb as he returned the handshake with a rather regal nod of his head. Caryssa mused, not for the first time, that Robb would have made a good King of the North, like so many of their ancestors had before the North was claimed as dominion of the king of the rest of Westeros. 

“My, you’re a pretty one,” The king said to Sansa, before moving on to talk to Arya, “Your name is?”

“Arya.” Caryssa was happy that her sister stayed true to form and did not flinch when the king addressed her. The king moved on again, smiling slightly at Bran, before he spoke with amusement coloring his tone. He seemed to have a way with the younger children.

“Oh, show us your muscles,” He said, and Bran pushed his cloak back and flexed his arm. The king chuckled at the little wolf and smiled. “Oh, you’ll be a soldier.”

Bran’s replying beam of happiness made Caryssa’s heart warm. It was no secret amongst their family that Bran wanted to be a knight or a member of the Kingsguard someday, and for the king to say that to him obviously meant the world to him. Caryssa mused silently that the king probably did not even know the kindness that he had just done the boy. 

“That’s Jaime Lannister, the Queen’s twin brother.” Caryssa heard Arya mutter to Sansa, and her eyes flickered back to the Lannister lion, who had removed his helm, shaking out his golden hair. 

Caryssa could fully see him now, and was now certain that the whispers did him no justice. His hair was like spun gold, not unlike the Queen’s and her children’s, and he had a very handsome face. He had dismounted his horse, with the prince and the Hound, and his eyes scanned the area, before being drawn back to her. She unashamedly let her eyes roam his body, taking in his expensive armor and his physique, before she grew uninterested again, so snapped her eyes away from him and gave her attention to the Queen, who had finally approached them.

She gave her father a slight smile, placing her hand in his. Ned lifted the Queen’s pale, cold hand to his lips and pressed a quick, gentle kiss to it.

“My queen.” He said, and his wife curtseyed and repeated his words in greeting, earning another twitch of a smile from the Southern Queen, which was quickly wiped away by her husband’s request.

“Take me to your crypt. I want to pay my respects.”

“We’ve been riding for a month, my love. Surely the dead can wait.” The Queen said, and Caryssa saw her point. The ride from Kings Landing to Winterfell was not exactly a short trip, nor would it have been rather comfortable, but the King paid that no mind.

“Ned.” He called to Caryssa’s father, before turning his back on his wife, disappearing from view. Caryssa watched her father’s eyes flit to the Queen, giving her an apologetic look, before reluctantly following his king, and his friend, even if he did not want to. 

Caryssa felt slightly awkward, and slightly disappointed by the man that she had just seen. It became clear very quickly that there was no love between the king and queen, and that he did not honor his wife as he should, because of the love he still bore to a woman long dead. Caryssa gave the Lion Queen a kind smile, but both of their attention was drawn to the youngest Stark girl as she asked, slightly louder than she should have, where the ‘Imp’ was.

The Queen strode away towards her brother and son, and Caryssa found the Lannister Lion’s eyes on her again. She quirked her head, giving him a questioning gaze, but rolled her eyes when he smirked at her. He was clearly one of those men. The type of man who would toy with a person for his own amusements. Caryssa was a little apprehensive about his gaze, since she was not naïve enough to believe that he actually remained as celibate as his vows would have him, couple that with the fact that he was a Lannister who had enough wealth and power to believe they could have anything or anyone they wished and Caryssa found herself unhappy that she had caught his apparent interest. 

The king’s visit would not bode well for her it seemed, not well for her at all.

~*~

Jaime Lannister’s interest was piqued by the Stark girl, that was for sure. He had heard rumours of her beauty and her singing voice many times from inn keepers and villagers on their journey north, but while she was breath-taking, a pale, dark beauty, she was only as beautiful as his sister was. 

His sister. He and his sister’s own forbidden relationship had come to an end a couple years after their last bastard had been born. Their love for each other was still there, but it was less potent than it had been in the beginning. They had realised that it was nothing more than a childish dream to continue, praying one day that they could be together. They were both sick of hiding, of the secrets, of all the terrible things they had had to do in order to protect their secrets, and so ended it, even though their love still remained as something more than a familial love. 

Unless he found someone he could love without having to hide their relationship, a distraction from the love he had had to let go. Cersei found her distraction in her children, and in her hatred for her husband’s whoring and refusal to let himself love his queen. Jaime thought that his duties as a Kingsguard would be enough, but it wasn’t. 

Maybe the Stark girl could be distraction enough, or perhaps even grow into a tolerable companion. He knew that the King and Ned Stark would be discussing possible betrothals for the eldest Stark girl since there were none in the North that the old wolf deemed worthy. Maybe he would throw his name into consideration. Seeing the King’s reaction to the girl, he knew that Robert would want his Lyanna look-a-like to be in King’s Landing where he could look upon her when he wished, so he would probably look to some of the knights or lords in King’s Landing.

Jaime Lannister smirked, as he realised that maybe his visit to the frozen hell that was the north wouldn’t be so terrible after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi!
> 
> This story was originally on fanfiction.net, but due to problems on the site, I've started to post on here instead.
> 
> I hope you enjoy the story as much as my reviewers on FF seem too!


	4. A Tale of Two Betrothals

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Happiness is different from pleasure.  
> Happiness has something to do with struggling,  
> and enduring,  
> and accomplishing."
> 
> -George Sheehan

Sometime in the middle of the day, Caryssa was getting frustrated by the amount of people that seemed to be packed within the castle. So she went to seek refuge in her usual place; the Godswood. She sat in front of the Heart Tree, her head bowed and her eyes closed. She loved the quiet of the forest, the only sounds to be heard were the rustling of the leaves and the cheerful chirping of birds. Caryssa understood why her father would come out here after an execution, to pray to the gods and clean his sword. It was peaceful enough that you could clear your head and sort through the noise within your thoughts. 

Caryssa would always come out to the Godswood, to sit in front of the Heart Tree, when she was little. Often she’d find her father out here, and they’d sit together in the silence of the woods. She’d sit on the ground while he sat on a small stone seat, and she’d lean against his legs and he’d run his fingers through her hair while they both worked through their own thoughts. Sometimes they’d talk through problems that her father was having, she would offer her opinion and he’d take what she said into consideration. Her mother would joke that Caryssa was more her father’s advisor than his daughter at times and that she was too wise for someone so young.

Perhaps she was too wise for her own good. Caryssa had always had a knack for knowing when something was going to change, when something was coming in the horizon. It wasn’t anything that wasn’t natural, she wasn’t a seer or a witch; she just had good instincts. For example, the king’s arrival in Winterfell spelt a change coming that she knew that she wasn’t going to like. Her father would have no choice but to accept the king’s offer of becoming the Hand of the King, and he would leave Winterfell. That was a change that Caryssa did not want. They were of the North, their blood ran differently to those in the South, they were different, and Ryssa knew that she couldn’t protect her father if he were in the South. She wouldn’t be able to race to his side quickly enough to protect him. 

She shook her head of those thoughts. Her father was Lord Eddard Stark, Lord of Winterfell and Warden of the North, he had put a king on the throne and stopped rebellions, and he could look after himself, even if her instincts were telling her that sometimes even that wouldn’t be enough.

Caryssa was certain that everyone would be too busy or too occupied with the feast tonight to bother her here, even praying to the Gods to give a few moments peace, but her prayers went unanswered. She heard the snapping of twigs underneath feet, and turned her head to see that Jaime Lannister stood behind her, leaning casually against a tree, though no longer in his golden and white armor. Caryssa supposed that he would look a lot less intimidating like this, than he did in his armor, though Caryssa herself couldn’t say that she felt intimidated by his presence. It was more a lust that she wouldn’t give into. A Lannister was not someone she as a Stark wanted to involve herself with. 

While a wolf is not afraid of a lion, both being predators, a wolf is wise not to venture too close to a lion, lest they rip each other apart.

“What do you pray for, Lady Stark, on a happy occasion such as this?” He questioned, as he took in her moment of surprise before she stamped it out, schooling a mask of indifference on her face.

“On a happy occasion such as this, I pray for the patience to deal with unwanted attention from Lannister lions, Ser Jaime. Clearly the gods have their attentions elsewhere today.” Caryssa replied, smiling at him briefly, a sarcastic smile to match her witty words.

“The Ice Lady has a wit. What a lovely surprise,” Caryssa scowled at Jaime, before turning around to face the Heart Tree again, choosing to ignore him. She stared down at her pale hands, wondering how they could still be smooth and soft in spite of the cold weathers she had grown in, and hoped he would simply leave as his presence troubled her. Was nowhere sacred anymore? She had been certain that none of the Southerners wouldn’t come into the place of the Old Gods. “Have I offended you, my lady? I do hope that you accept my most humble of apologies.”

“I’m sorry to say that I don’t take any notice of honeyed words from pretty men, Ser,” Caryssa rose to her feet, brushing leaves away and flicking mud from the bottom of her skirts, and turned to face him. “And an apology is only humble when the person giving it truly means it, and is not using it to disguise his smugness and arrogance.”

“Your words wound me, Lady Stark. What have I done to earn such cynicism?” Jaime questioned, strolling towards her and Caryssa fought the impulse to step backwards like a skittish animal. She saw the amusement in his green eyes, eyes she noticed were not as cold as his sister’s were. He was enjoying this.

“Nothing, Ser, except being a Lannister. I have been warned that it is not wise for a lady to play with lions.” Caryssa replied, now having to look up to keep looking into his eyes as he had moved directly in front of her. Her sense of propriety and decency, as well as her mistrust of men, was telling her that she should step away, leave before he could do anything to compromise her honor, but the arrogance in his eyes and her own stubbornness rooted her feet to the very ground where she stood.

“Or for a knight to play with wolves, but you don’t strike me as the type of lady to stick to the rules, Lady Stark.” 

Caryssa took a confident step forward, eliminating a large amount of the space between them, surprising the lion with her boldness. She had surprised herself, allowing herself to be in a rather intimate position with a strange man who was not her husband or even her betrothed, but she continued anyway.

“It has been my experience, Ser Jaime, that rules are more like guidelines in a game,” Caryssa said, smiling at him, and he blinked in surprise at the difference between the cold, blank expression she had had before and the beaming smile she had plastered on her face now. It made her even more pleasing to look at, if that were possible. “In any case, I don’t recall inviting you to play.”

With those final words, Caryssa left the golden knight in front of the Heart Tree, a satisfied smirk playing on her lips.

She had been toe-to-toe with the golden lion, and walked away without a scratch, that was a victory to be proud of.

~*~

After her brief encounter with Jaime Lannister, Caryssa headed to Sansa’s room, knowing that her younger sister would want to choose the dress she would wear and how she was going to have her hair so that she wouldn’t get embarrassed by her older sister’s appearance. Caryssa insisted that she was perfectly capable of dressing herself, but when it came to feasts and princes and dresses, Sansa was not one to be argued with. 

So that was where Caryssa was, lying across her sister’s bed, watching her mother braid Sansa’s beautiful red hair. Sansa was wearing one of her own creations, a pretty blue gown, and she was having her mother braid her hair in an elaborate Southern style in honor of their guests. 

“Do you think Joffrey will like me? What if he thinks I’m ugly?” Sansa questioned, and Caryssa had to resist the urge to roll her eyes. Her sister valued nothing more than approval from the prince and the rest of the royal family. It quite annoyed Caryssa, who believed that no one’s opinion or approval mattered but that of your blood. Family, Duty, Honor was the motto of House Tully, her mother’s family, and Caryssa took that seriously. Family first, duty second, and honor third. 

“Then he is the stupidest prince that ever lived.” Catelyn told her daughter, and Caryssa nodded.

“And a blind fool to boot.” Caryssa added, sitting up and looking at her sister as the girl stared at her reflection in a hand held mirror. 

“He’s so handsome. When would we be married? Soon? Or do we have to wait?” Sansa questioned, and Caryssa frowned. Sansa was in love with the idea of love, of marrying a prince and bearing his children. She didn’t seem to understand the reality of it. Joffrey could be a cruel, evil little brute underneath the nice, charming exterior, and Sansa wouldn’t know it until it was too late. 

“Hush now. Your father hasn’t even said yes.” Their mother reminded her, continuing to braid the silky red strands of her daughter’s hair. 

“Why would he say no? He’d be the second most powerful man in the kingdoms.” Sansa replied, and Caryssa shook her head at the little wolf. 

“Father would have to leave Winterfell, leave mother, and you along with him. Winter is coming, little wolf, and when winter comes, what do the wolves do?” Caryssa questioned, rising to her feet and moving into her sister’s eye line. Sansa sighed, and stared at her sister stubbornly until she knew that she was waiting for an answer.

“The wolves stay in the den and protect each other, but, Caryssa, I’d be queen someday,” Sansa said, before turning to look at her mother, with wide, pleading eyes. “Please make Father say yes! Please, please! It’s the only thing I ever wanted.”

“Let’s drop this discussion for now. What dress do you plan to wear to the feast, Ryssa?” Catelyn questioned her eldest, and the young woman smiled in response at her mother’s quick subject change, and decided to help her. 

“I was thinking of the grey one that I wore for Robb’s last namesday. It’s pretty enough.” Caryssa replied, shrugging her shoulders in indifference. She did not care for feasts. She was too much like her father. They both felt like a bear in a trap when it came to feasts, although, Caryssa did enjoy dancing, so she would often try and miss the first part of the feast to arrive just in time for the dancing and would then leave just as quickly. Though that would not be the case with this feast, she would be obligated to stay as long as possible as it was a feast for the king.

“I actually had a dress made especially for you for this special occasion. Sansa helped. It’s in the Southern style, in honor of our guests.” Her mother said, finishing Sansa’s last braid, and leaving the room to go fetch the dress. 

Caryssa gave Sansa a curious look, and Sansa feigned innocence, which made her elder sister laugh at her obviousness. Ryssa sat back down on the bed, and waited for her mother to return, trying to persuade her sister to give her more details about the dress that she knew next to nothing about. Sansa refused to cooperate however, saying that it was a surprise, and Ryssa just grew more frustrated and antsy.

She had never been a fan of surprises. Especially when they were often bad. 

This one turned out to be one of those rare, wonderful surprises. 

Her mother waltzed back into the room, a dress of light blue cotton - with a layer of silk above it so that it was beautiful, but warm in the Northern temperatures - draped across her arms. It didn’t have sleeves, but Caryssa was used to the cold northern air, and she would be inside most of the night anyway. Caryssa took the dress from her mother’s arms, and looked at it more closely. There was silver embroidery on the bodice that just added to the beauty of the gown. It was most definitely the most beautiful dress that Caryssa owned.

“It’s beautiful. Thank you both.” Caryssa said, before she disappeared behind the screen in Sansa’s room, and undressed. 

She slipped the new gown on, smoothing the skirt out and loving the feel of silk underneath her hands. Most of her gowns were made from thick cottons or wool because of the temperatures, so silk was a rare thing for her to come across. She felt every bit the Beauty of the North in the gown she was now wearing. She moved out from behind the screen, and turned her back to her mother, who promptly moved forwards to tie the laces up in the back. 

When Caryssa turned around, after settling the jewel of her necklace over the neck of her dress, both her mother and her sister cooed at her apparent beauty, and then forced her into the seat that Sansa quickly vacated, so that they could do her hair. They twisted and tugged her hair in their hands, plaiting two braids on either side of her hair, then connecting them into a larger braid that went down her back, whilst leaving a large section of her hair flowing down her back in dark waves.

When her mother and sister were done, Caryssa rose to her feet. 

“It truly is a beautiful gown, Mother, but I had so many suitable gowns fit for a feast with the king, so what is the real reason behind this gift?” Caryssa questioned, arching an eyebrow and daring her mother to not speak the truth. Her mother sighed, and her sister rolled her eyes at the challenge in Caryssa’s eyes.

“Your father has been thinking of potential suitors for your hand for a few weeks now. I believe the king will help your father make a decision tonight.” Catelyn told her daughter in the softest voice she could muster, knowing that her daughter would not take kindly to being kept in the dark for all this time. 

Sansa watched her sister closely, expecting a strong reaction. If there was one thing that Caryssa Stark hated, it was secrets or being kept out of affairs that she deemed she was privy to. She was the eldest, she deserved to be kept in the know, it was her right. Also this was directly connected to her sister, so she was certain to be angry that their father had kept this from her.

“Who are the suitors they are considering?” Caryssa questioned, her eyes staring at the skirt of her dress, her voice quiet, but still as strong as it would normally be. 

“They have narrowed it down to a few, among them Lord Loras Tyrell, and Ser Jaime Lannister.”

“Jaime Lannister has taken vows. He cannot take a wife.” Caryssa denied, and she glared at her mother for not coming to tell her when it appeared that her father would not. She was not a child no longer, and even when she was considered a child, she had been privy to a lot of sensitive information, because she was trustworthy and wise for her short years.

“The king is considering releasing him from his vows. He believes it would relieve the tensions that have been between the Houses of Stark and Lannister for years.” Catelyn explained, realizing immediately that her words were not the ones her daughter had wanted to hear, when the girl let out a frustrated growl, sounding very much like a wolf of her House.

“You should be happy, sister, both Ser Loras and Ser Jaime are very handsome. If you marry Ser Jaime, we could both have beautiful blonde babes.” Sansa said, and Caryssa’s head snapped towards her sister, fixing the romantic-minded girl with a dark look. Sansa couldn’t understand why her sister was not happy with the way things were turning out. If Ser Jaime was released from his vows, and they married, Caryssa would be Lady Lannister of Casterly Rock someday. 

Caryssa had suddenly had enough of pampering and preening, and made her escape while she could. She rushed to her rooms, purposefully trying to avoid being seen by anyone. The feast was in less than an hour, and if someone saw her now, she would have to go then and not halfway through as she wished. 

So she snuck through the hallways, until she managed to sneak into her rooms, where she picked up the book on healing that Maester Luwin had loaned her, trying her best not to focus on the betrayal her father had committed against her. Caryssa and her father had a strict no secrets policy. She had never kept a secret from him in her life, but he had been keeping one from her for weeks. She was hurt, but she knew she would have to push her feelings aside when she entered the Great Hall. The good thing about feasts and banquets and court was that it was like a masquerade. You need only put on the right mask and then no one could see through it to who you truly were or how you were feeling.

A couple hours later, Caryssa donned her own mask and made the trip to the Great Hall, steeling herself before she entered. She plastered on a wide, pretty smile, and told herself that the next day she would ask her father when he intended to tell her, but for tonight, she would attempt to play the happy daughter who knew nothing of her impending betrothal. She would dance, she would drink, she would sing if the king asked for it, and she would forget her father’s small betrayal and enjoy the rest of the feast.


	5. The Lady Dances

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "We are puppets, dancing on the strings of those who came before us, and one day, our own children will take up our strings, and dance in our steads."
> 
> -George R. R. Martin

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: The song in this story is Sleepsong by Secret Garden. It's a beautiful Irish lullaby and it does not in any way belong to me. I just can't write songs or poetry so I used it for this story.

Jaime Lannister had been looking for her all night, from where he leaned against the furthest wall from where the king was. The King had talked to him after their little rendezvous in the Godswood, telling him that he was being considered by Ned Stark and himself to marry the she-wolf. 

Merely a couple of years past, he would have protested at the thought of marrying anyone that was not his sister, though he would have remained silent about that little fact. No one would have matched his sister, but now, the idea of marriage was a lot more agreeable. It wasn’t like he was dishonoring his sister. They were no longer partaking in their taboo relationship, and Cersei often found her pleasures in others now and he found it didn’t bother him as much as he used to think it would. 

Marrying the Stark girl could be a lot of fun. The only part he objected to was no longer being part of the Kingsguard, and he had gotten that fool of a king to agree to let him keep his post, whilst still marrying the young woman, should he be the final decision. His marriage would make his father happy as his son would be able to become the heir to Casterly Rock. 

His eyes searched the room for her again, until he heard a chuckle from his side. His eyes moved reluctantly down, knowing immediately who the chuckle belonged to. His little brother (in every sense of the word) stood beside him, with an all too knowing look.

“You should make it less obvious, brother.” Tyrion suggested, and Jaime rolled his eyes.

“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean, brother.” Jaime said, looking away from his brother’s smug face. 

“The Stark girl is rumored to be the most beautiful thing in the North, maybe even the whole of Westeros, with a singing voice that could lure even the most honorable of men to her bed,” Tyrion said casually, as he sipped his goblet of wine, and watched his brother’s face. “Though, I also heard she refuses any that try to court her. Apparently the last man tried to force himself on her, so she cut off his hand herself.”

“I have not heard her sing, but she is a beauty, that I cannot deny. I don‘t know about her skill with a blade, but she does have a sharp tongue. It could rival yours, brother.” Jaime replied, scanning the room for the woman they were speaking of once more.

Then the doors to the hall opened and she sauntered in, her head high and a wide smile on her lips. She was wearing a dress that looked like it belonged in the South, clearly something her mother had made for her in their honor. She did look a vision in the pale blue silk, and Jaime found himself transfixed until another chuckle made him turn his eyes away from her, but it didn’t last long, and his eyes were drawn back to her, like every other male’s in the room. She seemed happy to have finally joined them, but her smile was a clear lie. He’d seen the same smile on his sister before. It didn’t quite reach her eyes, which made him question why. Perhaps she had heard of their potential betrothal and was less than happy about it. Or perhaps she disliked feasts as much as her father seemed to.

And then he caught her eyes, and knew that it wasn’t about the feast.

~*~

Caryssa glided into the hall, and when she felt eyes on her, she turned to find them. Green eyes appraised her, and instead of that smug, warm feeling she had gotten that morning, she found herself feeling like a prize mare in an auction. 

Despite the fact she still lusted over the golden lion, tonight she couldn’t bear to look at him, knowing that her harmless flirting could suddenly become an invisible iron chain binding her to him for life. She looked away quickly, but her eyes caught his sister’s instead. Cersei managed to quirk her lips at her, but Caryssa knew it was fake. The Queen did not like her, because Caryssa was the living form of the ghost that haunted her marriage. It was not a secret that the King’s heart still belonged to Lyanna Stark, and that Cersei hated him for that. Caryssa did not flinch from her gaze, and it seemed that Cersei would not either, until Catelyn pulled her into a conversation.

Caryssa rushed to the table where her siblings were sat, wanting to distract herself from her thoughts. She pushed herself in between Robb and Theon and stole Robb’s mug of ale, drinking it quickly without spilling a drop. Robb had made a noise of protest, until he saw his sister’s hands shaking as she placed the mug back in front of him. Caryssa’s hands never shook, not unless she was angry, and despite her furious temper, she did not get angry often. Which meant that something was terribly wrong.

“Get my sister a cup of wine!” Robb called to a serving wench, and a cup was immediately placed in front of her. Caryssa immediately drained it, clenching her hand around the cup when she finally noticed that her hand was shaking. “Are you going to tell me what is wrong?”

“Gods give me strength,” Caryssa muttered, before she looked at her brother and Robb immediately saw the anger in her eyes. He had been right. “Father has been making plans with the King to marry me to…Jaime Lannister or Loras Tyrell. I’m not sure what is worse; my potential suitors or father keeping secrets from me.”

“He is only doing what is right by you and by the family. You should not worry so much, sister.”

“Perhaps you are right, but that does not make me feel any better about it,” Caryssa said, snatching Theon’s mug of ale, and gulping it down before he could snatch it back. She then rose to her feet, and held her hand out to her brother. “Come dance with me, brother. It should help me forget the mess my life will soon become.”

Robb rolled his eyes at her, but took her hand and led her to the only open space in the Great Hall. The music picked up as the entertainers saw Lady Caryssa take to the floor, and it brought a smile to her face. Robb pulled his sister into the circle of his arms, and then they danced, practically flying around the space to the beat of the music. Robb was just glad that his sister was now laughing, instead of angry as she was before. 

When their dance was over, Caryssa was practically passed around, dancing with pretty much anyone who asked. She even danced with Theon, but that could have been because of the mixture of ale and wine she had consumed. Still, she did not expect, when she was dancing with her sister, Arya, to suddenly be pulled away into the strong arms of Ser Jaime Lannister. He smirked at her, as he moved her around the room, as though he expected her to pull away and go back to dancing with her sister, but she smiled at him, even if it was a terse, bitter smile, and kept on dancing, even though she tried to escape when a slower song was played but Jaime held onto her. 

“You look beautiful, my lady.” Ser Jaime said, and Caryssa rolled her eyes at him, being forced to hold in her words as he twirled her in a circle before pulling her back into his arms. 

“Oh spare me your flattery, Ser.” Caryssa snapped, and Jaime smirked at her.

“I take it you heard about the possibility of our marriage. I’ll try to hold off the sting of rejection, until you tell me why you object so much to the idea.” 

“I object to the idea because wolves and lions do not belong together, and I do not belong in the South. The North is where I belong, especially now.”

“‘Winter is coming’. You Starks are a paranoid bunch, aren’t you?” Jaime questioned, and Caryssa laughed in his face, but he could tell that it was in a mocking way instead of amusement. 

“Not to be rude, Ser, but you Southerners spend too much time giving your attentions to tournaments and feasts and courts. You don’t feel and see the changes we do here in the North. The winds get harsher each year, the air colder, and our warm months grow shorter. Winter is coming, and the North will be prepared while the rest of you freeze and complain about your short-sightedness.” Caryssa said, her voice low and dark but her smile was one of ease and smugness, until she saw that her words had not had the desired effect upon her dance partner. 

In fact, he was looking at her in amusement, and slight surprise, and there was something strange in his eyes that Caryssa did not want to dwell on for fear of answers she was not ready to hear. His stupid grin, however, caused her to scowl. She wanted him to take her words to heart, wanted him to take offence, and maybe even threaten her. She wanted to put him off of her, so that he would rush off to King Robert and her father and take himself out of the running for her hand. 

“I think I might enjoy being married to a woman with such a sharp tongue,” Jaime smirked, and Caryssa found herself smiling in spite of herself, which the golden haired man caught as he was staring down at her as they danced. “Ah, the lady smiles! My mission is complete.”

“What?” Caryssa questioned, and Jaime saw the confusion in her blue eyes, though her lips were still curved up into a smile.

“When you walked in, my lady, your smile wasn’t real. Probably because you found out about our possibly upcoming vows. So I made it my mission to get the Ice Lady to smile, and, my lady, it was much easier than I thought it would be.” Jaime teased her, and she narrowed her eyes at him, before she noticed a familiar figure behind across the room from them and a wider smile spread across her face. She pushed Jaime’s arms away from her, leaving him in the middle of the other dancers, watching as she rushed to embrace another man. 

Caryssa ignored her father, practically shoved Robb out of her way, and threw her arms around her uncle, squeezing him tightly as he chuckled at her enthusiasm.

“Uncle Benjen!” She cried, leaning back slightly to take in his face. He had more lines on his face than the last time she had seen him, which had been a couple of years ago. 

“Caryssa, my girl, you grow more beautiful each time I see you.” Her uncle replied, grinning from ear to ear, as his niece crushed herself to him again and planted a kiss to his cheek. She let him go after a moment more, and leaned into Robb’s side, his arm immediately curling around her waist. Caryssa saw her father’s eyes twinkle at the sight of them. He was always happy that his two eldest had formed such a close bond. He knew that it meant they would always look after each other. 

“I think your eyes are not as keen as they used to be, uncle. I have not changed since last we met.” Caryssa laughed, resting her head on her brother’s shoulder. 

“My eyes do not deceive me, my girl. Your aunt was the same. As she grew older, she only became more beautiful.” Benjen replied, his eyes taking on a soft sort of sadness. It was the same look that had been in the king’s eyes that morning when he had looked upon her for the first time during their introduction. That raw pain still evident even after all these years. 

Ryssa noticed that her father looked like he was going to speak to her, so she untangled herself from her brother’s embrace, and turned on her heel quickly. She did not think she could contain her temper at that present moment, should he speak to her about what her mother had told her. So she decided to head towards her two younger brothers, both of whom looked close to falling asleep.

However, instead of the quick escape she had wanted, she found herself staring at the chin of a golden lion. She tilted her head back to look into his eyes, but his eyes were on the man behind her. Her father had followed her, and now she was trapped between the two, with no hope of escape. 

“Your pardon, ser.” Ryssa said, hoping Jaime would move, but she was promptly ignored. 

“I hear we might be neighbors soon. I hope it’s true.” Jaime said, and Caryssa sighed, and waited for the masculine display to be over.

“Yes, the king has honored me with his offer.” Ned replied, pulling his daughter back slightly by her hip. He was uncomfortable with how close she was to the Kingslayer. They were not married yet, and she was still his daughter. 

“I also heard that I might be marrying your lovely daughter here.” Jaime said, finally acknowledging her presence. She gave him a terse smile in response, and made to move around him, but he just stepped forward and made sure she was properly trapped. Caryssa sighed in frustration, and looked around the room to see if anyone was paying enough attention to come and save her, but the only person who was watching was Tyrion Lannister, and he seemed to be enjoying her situation far too much. 

She shot the Imp a dark look, and he just laughed into his goblet of wine, shaking his head at her. 

“That is also true. The King and I have been discussing suitors for her in the capital.”

“I’m sure we’ll have a tournament to celebrate your new title and my marriage to your daughter, if you accept. It would be good to have you on the field. The competition has become a bit stale.” Ser Jaime replied, with an irritating, yet handsome, smirk on his face that made both father and daughter grind their teeth in annoyance. Jaime noticed that, and his smirk became more pronounced. Caryssa truly was her father’s daughter. 

“I don’t fight in tournaments.” Ned stated, much to Jaime’s amusement.

“No? Getting a little old for it?” He teased the older man, who just chuckled in return, letting the comment roll right off of him. 

“I don’t fight in tournaments because when I fight a man for real, I don’t want him to know what I can do.” Her father said, and Caryssa had to bite back her laughter at the very subtle threat in his words. It would not do well to threaten a Lannister, but her father knew that.

“Well said.” The Lannister lion grinned at him, and Caryssa decided that she had finally had enough.

“Now that you are both done with wasting precious moments of my life, I should put Bran and Rickon to bed before they fall asleep in their seats,” Caryssa said, raising her voice slightly to really get their attention. Jaime just smirked at her, as he had in almost all of their encounters, and she glared up at him as he made it clear that he had no intentions of moving out of her way. “Move, Ser Jaime, or you can choose which appendage you’d most like to lose.”

“She is feisty, isn’t she? Could be entertaining should we marry.” Jaime said, before stepping out of her way and with a sweeping gesture, allowed her to finally leave. 

She just rolled her eyes at him, before sauntering away, well aware that her father and Jaime were still watching her. Caryssa moved quickly towards her little brothers, holding back her laughter as Rickon’s head drooped before he jerked upright again. She curled her arm around her younger brother’s neck, and he looked up at her with sleepy, child-like eyes. 

“Come on, pup, it’s time for bed,” She said, plucking him up from his seat, settling him on her hip. Rickon immediately buried his face into her hair, nuzzling her neck before falling asleep almost instantly. She cooed quietly to him, before holding out her hand to Bran. “You too, little wolf. You’re coming as well.”

Bran didn’t even bother to protest, knowing that he was tired and that his sister knew it as well. He just took her hand, and let her lead him out of the hall, having to pause every so often as his sister was forced to say goodnight to someone. 

Eventually, Caryssa made it outside with the two boys, and unsurprisingly, Robb and Arya at their heels. Arya had flung food at Sansa while the prince had been watching, so Robb was forced to escort her to her room by their mother. 

“Sansa is such a baby!” Arya grumbled, as Robb and Caryssa rolled their eyes at her. Caryssa shifted Rickon on her hip, ignoring Robb when he offered to take him. The little wolf pup was already asleep, and Caryssa didn’t want to risk jostling him and waking him up. 

“Says the baby who still flings food at her sister,” Caryssa said, giving her little sister a disapproving glance. “Young ladies do not throw food.”

“You always tell me that I’m fine the way I am, so why should I have to act like a lady?” Arya questioned, and Robb snorted at her, making Caryssa glare at him for his lack of support. Arya was so wilful and stubborn, like her, which made it more difficult to be stern with her and not sound like a hypocrite. 

“Because you were in the presence of royalty. We must keep up pretenses, Arya. Even if we let you run around like a wildling, does not mean that we can allow you to do that in front of the king and queen,” Caryssa informed her, and Arya huffed a little, though she knew her sister was right. “You shouldn’t have humiliated Sansa like that in front of the prince. They are to be betrothed, Arya, and she is trying to make a good impression.”

“She always acts so prim and proper, like she didn’t use to join in on our pranks on Theon.” Arya grumbled, as they came to a halt outside her room. Bran was leaning heavily against Caryssa’s side now, practically sleeping on his feet, and Rickon was almost drooling on her shoulder.

“Every person is different, Arya. Sansa wants to be a lady, you want to be a knight and Caryssa wants to be a blend of both. No woman is the same.” Robb said, earning himself a surprised smile from the other half of himself. Caryssa arched a brow at him, before nudging Arya with her foot.

“You understand what your oh so wise older brother said?” Caryssa questioned, and upon receiving a nod from her sister, she nudged her again. “Good. Now get to bed. I’ll be checking you’re asleep when I return from the feast.”

Arya rolled her eyes, and mumbled a goodnight to her siblings, before turning and trudging into her room. Caryssa turned to move, but almost slipped over due to losing balance since Bran had indeed fallen asleep against her, resting his full weight on her when she was not prepared to take it. Robb was the only thing that stopped her from falling over, pulling her fully upright again.

He just snickered slightly, before heaving Bran into his arms, and carrying down the halls to the little wolf’s room. Caryssa watched her brothers leave, knowing that she would meet Robb back in the feasting hall. As much as she wanted to just return to her room and sleep off the dancing she had done, she knew that, as the eldest, she had a duty to stay until at least her mother and father retired.

Knowing that she’d rather get the rest of the feast over and done with, Caryssa turned on her heel and carried a slightly stirring Rickon to his bedchambers. He was half asleep when she managed to get him into bed, with Shaggydog (Caryssa almost wished she hadn’t let him name the direwolf himself) curling up beside him immediately, but he was awake enough to complain about being too hot under his furs with all his clothes still on.

Caryssa rolled her eyes at him, as he simply lifted his arms above his head and waited for her to remove his tunic for him. She tugged gently at the laces, making it loose enough for her to pull it up over his head, leaving him in a shirt and his breeches. She tucked him in tightly underneath the furs, and placed a gentle kiss on his forehead before turning to leave.

“Ryssa, sing me a lullaby please?” Rickon whined, and Caryssa sat by his side again, smiling gently down at him, running her fingers through his soft dark hair. 

“Which one would you like, pup?” She questioned, her heart warming as her little brother snuggled towards her, and yawned. Despite refusing many suitors, Caryssa had yearned for children of her own since she had first flowered at thirteen. She loved her younger siblings so dearly, saw how deeply her parents loved their children, and she knew that someday she wanted that. She just didn’t want it to be all she did with her life. She didn’t want to be wife and mother, and nothing else like so many other women. She wanted more, she just did not know what.

“The sleep song.”

“Naturally. Okay,” Caryssa said, clearing her throat, before she began to sing.

“Lay down your head and I’ll sing you a lullaby,  
Back to the years of loo-li lai-lay,  
And I’ll sing you to sleep and I’ll sing you tomorrow,  
Bless you with love for the road that you go,

May you sail fair to the far fields of fortune,  
With diamonds and pearls at your head and your feet,  
And may you need never to banish misfortune,  
May you find kindness in all that you meet,

May there always be angels to watch over you,  
To guide you each step of the way,   
To guard you and keep you safe from all harm,  
Loo-li, loo-li, lai-lay,

May you bring love and may you bring happiness,   
Be loved in return to the end of your days,  
Now fall off to sleep, I’m not meaning to keep you,  
I’ll just sit for a while and sing loo-li, lai-lay,

May there always be angels to watch over you,  
To guide you each step of the way,  
To guard you and keep you safe from all harm,  
Loo-li, loo-li, lai-lay,

Loo-li, loo-li, lai-lay.”

Caryssa ended her song and kissed her now sleeping brother on the brow, before gently rising to avoid waking him. Her quiet, calculated movements were almost in vain when she turned, and almost screamed at the sight of Jaime Lannister leaning against the open doorway of little Rickon’s room. Caryssa managed to slap a hand over her mouth, and bit back the scream, before glaring at him, as he laughed silently. 

The she-wolf pushed him out of her way, closing the door to Rickon’s room behind her, before trying to storm past him. However, the lion had other ideas and grabbed her arm to force her to look at him.

“I did not mean to frighten you, my lady. I’m sorry.” Jaime said, and Caryssa regarded him for a moment, before smirking at him.

“Liar. Why else would you be skulking in the doorway of my brother’s bedroom?” She questioned, ignoring how the knight’s hand had dropped to her own, and was gripping that instead of her forearm. Despite her irritation from him, and her anger towards their proposed marriage, she couldn’t help but think of how nice his warm hand felt around hers. 

“Skulking, milady? I merely heard the faint sounds of a beautiful melody over the noise in the feast hall, and decided to investigate. It is true what they say…you truly are the Northern Nightingale.” Caryssa felt something strange in her stomach, a slight fluttering, but when she realized that it was due to the Lannister’s words, she squashed the feeling quickly. She would not turn into Sansa, and melt over a man because of honeyed words and good looks.

“Thank you, Ser Jaime,” She said, with a slight smile, before she gestured in the general direction of the feasting hall. “Would you accompany me back to the feast?”

“It would be my pleasure, milady.” Jaime said, bringing her small, dainty hand to his lips. Caryssa felt herself blush involuntarily and scowled inwardly at herself, before allowing a small smile to grace her face as a response to his action. 

Jaime curled her arm around his, a smirk on his lips that let her know that he had seen the heat in her cheeks, before escorting her back to the feast, where she instantly untangled herself from him and left his side. 

Caryssa cursed herself and Jaime Lannister for the rest of the evening, because even when she was having a stiff, borderline polite conversation with the Queen and her mother, her Tully blue eyes would always find his Lannister green orbs wherever they were in the room. 

She cursed herself because she was supposed to be rebelling any sort of connection to him now that she could be bound to him for life, but instead she was like a child staring in awe at a golden knight. She had become no better than her little sister, staring across the table at her betrothed with rose tinted vision. 

The Northern woman caught eyes with him once more, after she had retreated from her subtle war of words with Queen Cersei, when she was in conversation with Robb and Theon about the kraken’s ‘luck’ with women. He was watching her while he sat with his brother, talking quietly to each other, and occasionally Tyrion’s gaze would flicker to her, so she knew they were talking about her. Caryssa couldn’t comprehend as to why the lion seemed so intrigued by her. She was no more or no less special than any other woman in the room. In her opinion, there were far more beautiful women than her, like the Queen or her little Sansa, so she couldn’t fathom why he only stared at her. 

Maybe it was her words in the Godswood, maybe it was her sharp tongue, or maybe it was because she had shown only the slightest of interest in him compared to the adoration she was sure other women lavished upon him. Whatever it was, she was only slightly sorry for it now. A small part of Caryssa felt slightly smug his attention was only on her, and no other. It made her feel a little bit more powerful that she had that kind of hold over a man. 

However, his attentions also irritated her as she found she couldn’t concentrate on her brother and his idiot friend while trying to understand why Ser Jaime stared, so she removed herself from the conversation and the feasting hall. 

Caryssa wandered outside, until she heard the hard thumps of a blade against a straw dummy. She knew of only one person who would be outside in the cold practicing his swordsmanship instead of inside drinking and eating. She rubbed her arms, trying to fend off the chill in the air, as she headed towards the source of the noise, where she found her other brother, who had been missing all night, slashing at the straw filled burlap sack that worked as a test dummy. 

“Who are you picturing that as?” Caryssa questioned, as Jon stabbed the dummy again. He spun around, and looked at her, as she shook from the cold. 

“As beautiful as you look, you also look like you’ll turn into an icicle if you stay out here any longer.” Jon said, instead of answering her question. He grabbed his cloak that he had discarded for his training, and draped it around her shoulders as she moved closer to him. She muttered her thanks, grabbing his hand to keep him next to her, the other hand grasping the cloak close to herself. 

“I picture Theon. He’s the only person I hate enough to make me want to run him through with my sword.” Caryssa joked, well half-joked, and Jon chuckled slightly. 

“I’ve never understood why you don’t like him. Robb loves him like another brother.”

“I don’t trust him. Never have and never will.” Caryssa shrugged, though it was barely noticeable because she was still shivering. Jon shook his head at her, before tugging her hand, beginning to lead her back to the hall.

“You should go back inside. It’s too cold for you out here in that dress.” Jon said, and Caryssa shook her head and locked her legs in place so he couldn’t move her without swinging her up into his arms and carrying her back inside.

“Only if you come in with me. I’ve missed you this evening, and you are the only one of my siblings I haven’t danced with, so you have to rectify that, brother dearest!” Caryssa said, her voice soft, but with an edge. One that said that she was not going to be argued with and that he should just do as she asked with no complaints. 

“Your mother won’t allow it. She thinks it would insult the royal family to seat a bastard in their midst.” Jon said, and Caryssa could hear the shame in his voice, and a sense of dislike and disappointment welled up inside her towards her mother. She couldn’t believe that she constantly made a boy feel so terrible about his own existence because of the mistakes of her husband.

“You would not be seated, you would be dancing,” Caryssa teased him, and Jon rolled his eyes at her, shaking his head but still not caving to her wishes, so she tried another tactic. “Everybody is too drunk to care, and if Mother gets angry, I will deal with it. Please, Jon, don’t make me beg. It’s not becoming of a lady.” 

His sister smirked at him, and Jon rolled his eyes at her and sighed, letting her lead him inside, smiling at her sweet giggles. She had obviously consumed some wine. It was the only real time she got giggly. His sister laughed a lot, well only around her family, and chuckled, and snickered, but never giggled unless she drunk wine. 

As soon as they were inside the hall, the musicians picked the music up, and Jon wondered how they always knew that his sister was going to dance. Caryssa smiled at him, and Jon sighed heavily again, and pulled her into his arms, trying to remember the dance lessons she had given him and Robb. 

Jon twirled his sister around the small dance floor, and tried to ignore the burning gaze of Lady Stark. Every time he glanced over at the royal table to see if Lady Stark was giving him the disapproving, hateful stare, Caryssa would force him to keep his eyes on her by stamping on his toes, or punching him in the arm. The people watching would laugh, and he would shake his head at her ‘subtle’ ways, and gave her his attention again.

After a couple dances, Caryssa finally let him go, but dragged him to the table where Robb and Theon sat, and got him an ale to drink. She forced him into her vacated seat, planted a kiss on his forehead and then sat on his left, sipping from a goblet of wine, her free hand grasping his arm tightly in reassurance.

Jon spent the rest of the night enjoying himself, drinking and laughing with his brother and sister, which brought happiness to his siblings and father. Catelyn Stark, however, was not best pleased that her daughter had defied her wishes and had brought the boy in to the feast, though even if she scolded Caryssa, the girl wouldn’t regret it. 

Caryssa smiled a genuine smile the rest of the night, something that Jaime noticed. She smiled with her brothers on either side of her, as she ended up, and looked genuinely happy, something that lit up her whole face in a way he had never seen Cersei’s. Jaime knew that the two women were different in their looks just from the first glance at the Stark girl, but it was only then that he had realized that the two women he had or used to have a romantic interest in were two vastly different in personality too. 

Cersei was a fierce beauty, golden and bright like the sun. Caryssa’s beauty was no less magnificent, but it was darker and gentler like the moon. Yet, he mused, they seemed to adopt the opposite of themselves. Cersei was often grim, unsmiling, and cold and what he had observed of Caryssa is that she was light, cheerful and warm. He shook his head, cursing the cold Northern air for making him think like a flowery bard. 

They were both complicated women, regardless, and Caryssa frustrated him more than anything. She wasn’t like Cersei at all, the only woman he had ever known intimately. Cersei was all passion, hard and rough and very clear in her intentions. Caryssa was a mystery wrapped in an enigma covered in a puzzle. One moment she was staring at him, the next she was pretending he didn’t exist. It was infuriating. 

Caryssa felt his eyes on her again, and this time she turned to acknowledge him, raising her goblet slightly towards him with a smile, before turning back to her brothers and her conversation. Her actions only left the lion even more confused by her, and she smirked in satisfaction.

Confusing Jaime Lannister was going to be her life’s mission, should her father agree to the king’s proposal of marriage between them, and she was going to enjoy it immensely. 

~*~


	6. Broken Wolves

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Because I could not stop for Death,  
> He kindly stopped for me,  
> The carriage held but just ourselves,  
> And immortality."  
> -Emily Dickinson

Caryssa awoke with the rising of the sun, her eyes bleary with sleep and a dull ache in her head from the drink she had consumed the previous night. Remembering that she had to speak to her father about her potential betrothals, she hurriedly dressed, pulling on a dark blue gown made of wool and her boots. Before leaving her room, she made sure to braid her hair so that it was out of her face, and quickly left her room. 

As it was still quite early, she guessed her parents would still be in their room, so headed there first, smiling politely at all the staff she passed and muttered a few good mornings. After a long process of polite greetings and short conversations, she arrived at her parents’ room, and a servant announced her presence. She waited to be let in, her hands clasped together and a passive look on her face. 

“Let her in,” Her father’s voice said, and the servant opened the door for her, and she gave him a small smile in return, which quickly vanished as soon as the door was closed behind her. The room seemed darker, smaller now than it had been when she was a small child, creeping in to her parent’s bed after a nightmare had plagued her sleep. “Say what you’ve come to say, Caryssa. Don’t just stand there and leave me in suspense.”

“Why did you not come to me? If you had said that it was time to properly discuss betrothals, you know that I would have been willing to listen, but instead you chose to discuss it with the king behind my back, treating me like other men would treat their daughters.”

“Your father did not mean to upset you, Caryssa. He is just doing what he thinks is right,” Her mother said, before her father could reply to her words. “Besides, you seemed to get along with him enough last night at the feast.”

“I was getting along with Theon Greyjoy at the feast last night, but that does not mean I want to marry him!” Caryssa snapped, before she took a deep breath to calm herself down, before muttering an apology. “Why him? Why Jaime Lannister?”

“If we go to King’s Landing, I will not be able to be with you all the time with my duties as the King’s Hand, but under the protection of the king, myself and Ser Jaime, no harm shall befall you.” Her father explained, and Caryssa frowned at his words, disagreement clear on her face. 

“I am not a child anymore. I do not need a man hovering around me for protection anymore.”

“It would help me sleep better, Caryssa, knowing that you had the protection of not just our house, but that of House Baratheon and House Lannister. I need you to understand that the world is far more dangerous than you know. I have tried to protect you as much as possible from the world…but King’s Landing is politics and murder and mysteries and lies and secrets all wrapped into one. I am only trying to do right by you.” Caryssa felt her resolve waning at her father’s words. Maybe she had been too harsh with her father. She was just angry at the initial betrayal and the Jamie Lannister of it all. She could learn to love or tolerate the Lannister lion, if only for her father’s peace of mind, but would it be enough? She didn’t know. 

There was still time for her father to change his mind, and while she could not pin all her hopes upon him doing so, she could still pray to the Gods for things to work out in her favor. If there was any way for her to stay in Winterfell with Robb, Bran, Rickon and her mother, than she would do it. 

If not, she would resign herself to trying to make her marriage to Ser Jaime at least a tolerable one if she could not spark any form of romantic feelings between them. 

She would find some way to make her life worth living, while appeasing her father and taking one more burden from his shoulders.

She would make it work somehow.  
~*~

A few days after the feast and her conversation with her father, Caryssa was dressed in one of her riding dresses, her long, dark tresses in a large braid over her shoulder, her cloak draped over her shoulders, her boots laced up to her knees, and was striding purposefully towards her saddled horse. She was joining the men on a hunt. Caryssa loved hunting, and that’s why she had left Rhaenyra with Arya and Nymeria, and had quickly gotten ready when her father had informed her that the king had asked her to accompany them, knowing that she was a skilled huntress.

The Southern men watched her as she checked over her newly sharpened arrows in her quiver, counting them to make sure she had a good amount, and she glared down at her weapon, trying to ignore their ignorant stares. Women were not supposed to join the men on hunting trips, but Caryssa had always insisted on joining her brothers when they first started hunting with her father. She had already been learning archery by then, and wanted to join the men. 

“A hunt is not the place for a woman, my lady.” One of the southern guards said to her, just as Robb and her Uncle Benjen approached her. Her father had already mounted his steed, along with King Robert, Ser Jaime and a mix of the Baratheon, Stark and Lannister house guards. 

The man that had spoken to her was tossing an apple up into the air, and Caryssa smirked at him, before quickly stringing an arrow to her bow and letting it fly in his direction. The Lannister guard cried out, thinking that she had tried to kill him, only to see that his apple was pinned against the stable wall by her arrow. 

“Neat trick, my lady, but hunting is an often bloody sport. Women should not see such a sight.” Ser Jaime said as he pushed his horse into a walk towards her. 

She rolled her eyes at him, a dark glint in them as she looked upon her betrothed. Her father had made the announcement to their family at dinner two nights past, and Caryssa had frowned at her dinner, before leaving with Robb on her heels. She hadn’t cried, nor did she speak any words, but her brother just held her in his arms. She knew that it was going to happen, but she had hoped that her father would change his mind, so she wouldn’t have to leave the North and her brothers. 

“While it is true that most women are unaccustomed to the sight of death, blood is something we see plenty of, Ser. Besides, I am not an ordinary woman. Here in the North, we are made of stronger stuff than your southern women,” Caryssa smirked as she stowed her bow into her quiver, checked that her riding dagger was tucked away in her saddle bag. She mounted Snow, and shared an irritated glance with her father who was beside the king, as the men began to grumble at her presence. “Does anyone else have any objections with my going on this hunting trip, because I’d be happy to leave you all behind and go by myself?”

“The Lady Caryssa will be joining us, have you all got that?” The King’s voice boomed, and the men silenced themselves for fear of angering their king. Caryssa smiled, and realized that it was, in this instance, a rather handy thing that she looked so much like her aunt. The King would be more willing to come to her aid against the stubbornness of his men. “Kingslayer! You’re guarding Lady Caryssa today.”

“My pleasure, Your Grace.” Jaime replied, smirking at the woman with a strange satisfaction. 

Caryssa sighed, but didn’t fight the king’s decision the way she would have if it was her father. She didn’t need protection from any man, she had learned to protect herself. Yet what the king wanted, he got. The Lannister lion would be following her around like a hawk now, and she would have to deal with his attentions. 

“Come on, boys, girl, let’s go kill some boar!” The king said, as he turned his horse towards the gates, but he turned his head back towards them, and gestured towards Caryssa with his hand. “Lady Caryssa, come, ride next to me.”

Caryssa plastered on a smile, but her eyes darted to her brother. She always rode next to Robb unless she was upset, and Robb was giving her the same sad look. It was these moments where Ned Stark realized just how lost his two eldest children would be without each other. They were both young adults, yet in some aspects they still seemed like children. They needed each other, and Ned knew he was going to hate himself for splitting them up. 

He had accepted the King’s offer of the title of Hand of the King, and he was taking his three girls with him to King’s Landing. Caryssa would be marrying Jaime Lannister, Sansa would be marrying Prince Joffrey, and Arya would be learning the ways of the court in the hopes it would turn her into a lady. It meant separating the wolves before winter, but they would have to deal with that as it came. 

Caryssa turned her eyes away from her brother, and took her place at the king’s side, ignoring the look the prince gave her, one that was a mixture of pleased and lust. The boy prince was an idiot. Her sister was far more beautiful than she, and yet here he was staring at her with a familiar hunger in his eyes that she had gotten used to seeing in men’s eyes. Caryssa knew she was beautiful, but she never understood why that was all men could see. There was far more to her than just her beauty. 

“So, your father tells me that before the Kingslayer, you had refused to marry any other suitor. Why was that, girl?” King Robert questioned, and Caryssa smiled, though kept her eyes focused forwards. 

“The truth, Your Grace, or the white lie I tell to keep people happy?” Caryssa asked, and King Robert chuckled at her. 

“The truth, girl. It’s a crime to lie to your king.”

“Very well, my king,” Caryssa said, pausing as she decided how to word her thoughts. “Before now, I saw marriage as a cage, confining me to a life of misery. I would have to leave my home, everything I have ever known and loved, for the sake of marrying a stranger who couldn’t love me as he wouldn’t know me and would take away what little freedom my father gives me. I would have to give up my own hobbies and pursuits for running a household and bearing children. What part of that sounds even remotely appealing to a young lady, Your Grace?”

“It’s the way the world works, my lady. Don’t you want to be looked after? Don’t you want children?” Prince Joffrey questioned, and Caryssa nodded a couple of times, before explaining.

“I want children, my prince, like any woman, but when I was younger, I had my siblings to help raise. In my eyes, I already had my children and I always used the excuse that my family needed me and that’s why I didn’t want to leave, but I suppose that it was more that I needed them. I didn’t want to be the lone wolf out on her own when the winter came,” Caryssa mused, her smile turning a little wistful, before she shook her head to block out any of her more morose thoughts and feelings. She plastered on a new grin, and looked at the prince. “Now what of you, my prince, what was it like to grow up in the Red Keep?”

Joffrey and the King kept her entertained with stories of King’s Landing, and of childhood stories and of battles and wars. The king made her laugh, and Joffrey was only mildly annoying that morning. He seemed to be on his best behavior, or as close to good behavior as the prince got, which made it easier for her to listen to his lies (the tales of his victories over the other younger men in court were truly lies because Caryssa had seen him spar with Robb and he was not very skilled with a sword). 

When they were deeper into the Wolfswood, Caryssa excused herself and let her horse drop backwards a little bit, until she turned Snow to the left and cantered into the forest away from them. She knew the forest like the back of her hand, knew where the boars were and where the largest stags grazed, and she knew how to herd them to wherever the other hunters were. She had always done this on hunting trips with her father, brothers, Jory and Theon, ridden on alone and herded their prey, but this time she found that she had her own follower. She pulled the reigns back, getting Snow to slowly come to a stop.

“Is there any reason that you broke out of line, Lady Caryssa?” 

She turned her head back at the sound of the lion that had been commissioned to ‘protect’ her, and blinked her eyes at him innocently, something he saw right through.

“Maybe I was seeing who would chase after me. What a pleasant surprise,” Caryssa teased, before continuing before he could open his mouth to speak. “I know a watering hole where the animals go to drink, which is where they are at this time of day, which also happens to be a little north of where the hunting caravan was going, so I was going to…herd the animals in the right direction.”

“And you thought you’d accomplish that alone?” Jaime questioned, and Caryssa arched a brow at him as his horse came to a stop right beside hers. 

“I’m not incapable,” Caryssa stated, before narrowing her eyes at the disbelief on his face. “I hope that you don’t plan to try to control me, Ser Jaime. I’m only marrying you because I believe it will help my house and because you are the most…attractive offer I’ve received since my father started to take marriage proposals seriously.”

“So you only agreed because of my dashing good looks. I suppose they had to come in handy someday,” Jaime smirked at her, and she rolled her eyes, exasperated by his inability to take any of their conversations seriously. “And I don’t plan on controlling you, Lady Stark. It’s rather attractive…that fire in you, that defiance. They do not make women like you, my lady.”

Caryssa grinned at him, before it turned into a smirk.

“If they did, men like you would be left very frustrated,” Caryssa teased him, before turning her mind back to the hunt. “Now, Jaime Lannister, how fast is your horse?”

Without waiting for his answer, Caryssa clicked her tongue and Snow galloped off into the trees, his rider expertly maneuvering them through the trees. She heard the pounding of hooves behind her, indicating that Jaime was following her, obeying the king’s orders. Caryssa quickly found the watering hole the animals frequented, and pulled out her bow and a single arrow. 

The deer were already standing to attention, having heard her approach, but as she had slowed Snow down to a trot, they had yet to bolt. She strung her arrow to her bowstring, and pulled it taut. She enjoyed archery simply because when she was like this, bowstring taut and her arrow almost seeming to come to life underneath her fingers, it felt like she was in her own world, and there was nothing but her, her weapon, and her prey. 

It was delightful to feel as though she had a place where she could be alone. She loved her family dearly, but she never had any time alone. If she wasn’t with her mother learning how to run a household, she was with her father discussing how to run the North and various other important things, or with Robb, Jon, Theon, Rodrick, and Jory training, or with Sansa and Arya in a needlework class, or with Bran in his lessons, or looking after Rickon. She never had a moment’s peace, but she usually didn’t mind. Yet, since the announcement of her impending marriage, she had begun to crave her time alone. Though it probably didn’t count as alone time now as her betrothed was just a few paces back, watching her intently.

She took her shot, missing the animals to make them dart into the right direction, and then began her pursuit, the Kingslayer right behind her. Every so often, Caryssa would have to make Snow go off course so she could herd the animals in the right direction again, but eventually she heard the cheers of the men as the first stag had been taken down. Caryssa and Snow, with Jaime and his own horse following, bounded into a small clearing where the king, the prince, her father, her brother, her uncle, Lord Tyrion and the household men of both houses were circled around a couple of fallen stags. 

Caryssa spotted a larger stag that had yet to flee, but was heading towards the king, who had dismounted his horse to inspect his kill. She quickly strung an arrow to her bow and let it fly, watching as it buried itself into the stag’s eye killing it instantly. 

It dropped to the ground right at the king’s feet, and King Robert stared at the fallen animal before raising his eyes to the young woman still perched atop her snow white horse, and he immediately thought of his Lyanna. She had always wanted to join him and her brothers on their hunting trips, but they had never allowed her, which was one of the reasons that the king had been so insistent on the lady’s attendance. 

Caryssa smiled at her kill, before putting her arrow away. Her brother was laughing at the victory in her eyes, along with Jory, her uncle and Theon, the king was chuckling and her father was beaming with pride, and Caryssa did not know how that moment could have gotten better.

It was a shame that she never found out. 

A rider burst through the tree line, as Caryssa had moments before, with a frantic look on his face. 

“Lord Stark! My lord! I bring a message from Maester Luwin, my lord! It’s Lord Bran. He fell from a tower-” The messenger started, but the sound of a galloping horse cut off his speech. 

The men of the North and South watched as the only woman of their hunting party, turned her horse around and galloped away in the direction of Winterfell, pushing her snowy white horse to go as fast as he could. The other Stark’s followed closely behind, with the king and Jaime Lannister close on their tails. They chased after the woman, who had clearly forgotten the existence of reason and logic, and whose only thought was of her brother who may or may not be dead.

Caryssa ignored the riders behind her, having a head start and no desire to slow down for them, and found herself riding through the gates of Winterfell in moments. She didn’t stop until she reached the courtyard of the castle, and quickly dismounted her horse, leaving the poor creature for a waiting stable hand to take back to the stables. 

She ran through the castle to the healing rooms, where the rest of her family was waiting outside, clearly not allowed into the room.

“What has happened?” Caryssa questioned, her voice sounding breathless, but still managed to maintain a hint of authority. She wanted answers and she was going to get them.

Her mother looked up at her with tears in her eyes, a clear look of despair and desperation in the usually calm blue that sent a stab of fear into the heart of her daughter. Only once before had she seen that look in her mother’s eyes. The day that her father brought home his son from the war. The day her mother’s heart had been broken. 

“He’s not dead, is he? He can’t be dead. Someone say something!” Caryssa yelled, startling her younger siblings at the harshness of her voice. Sansa’s slim resolve crumbled at the fear in her elder sister’s voice, something that she had never heard before in her thirteen years of life, and she burst into tears again. 

Caryssa’s anger quickly ebbed away, and she pulled her sister into her arms, kissing her auburn hair, whispering soft comforting words she had no idea whether they were true or not. It was then that the men arrived, the king demanding to be kept up to date on Bran’s health status, before muttering apologies to his friend and disappearing, Robb pulling a sobbing Rickon into his arms and Ned comforting his wife and youngest daughter. Caryssa pulled Jon into her and Sansa’s embrace, and he squeezed them to him tightly, giving as much comfort as he needed himself.

That’s how Jaime Lannister found the Stark family a few moments later, holding desperately onto each other, as they all silently prayed to the gods to spare their son or brother. Caryssa looked over Sansa’s head and spied him, standing almost awkwardly as he watched her family. His green eyes had an odd hint of sympathy in them, and hers unshed tears that her family would never see. 

In that moment, Jaime saw a crack in the ice around the North woman’s heart, a vulnerability that he had not yet seen in her, and then he knew that they were more similar than he had originally believed. 

Her family was her life, just as his family was his.


	7. Seven Hells

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "The most wasted of all days is one without laughter."
> 
> \- E. E. Cummings

Winterfell

In the days that followed Bran's fall, he had been moved to his room, where his mother stayed firmly at his side, never being persuaded to leave for sleep or food. The rest of his family lived out their day-to-day lives, though there was no laughter heard in Winterfell anymore. The little lord seemed to have taken all that with him the day he had fallen.

Ned Stark was worried for his son, for his wife and for his eldest daughter, who, like her mother, had slept and eaten very little since his son's accident. Caryssa had been dividing her time between trying to find something to wake Bran with in the medical texts that belonged to the Maester, tending to her younger siblings' needs, training with her brothers, helping her father see to their Southern guests and praying in the Godswood.

Everyone, even Winterfell's guests, could see the light in the Northern Nightingale's eyes had been dimmed significantly. While she had always come across as slightly standoffish and proud, there had always been a fire in her that was visible to all who came across her. It was just a gentle fire that burned slowly, slowly building. Before her brother had fallen, that fire, at times, could build into a raging inferno if provoked, but it seemed that her fire had been doused, leaving behind only burning embers.

Caryssa was less concerned about herself, and feared only for her brother's life, and obsessed over what had caused him to fall. Never had he fallen. Through wind, through rain, even through snow, her brother had never slipped nor fallen whilst climbing. He had the surest feet in the whole of the North. Something had caused him to fall, but she had never voiced that paranoid thought aloud.

Her days began to feel repetitive. In the mornings, she headed to the Godswood and prayed before she would wake Rickon and Arya, get them ready to break fast, make sure everyone else, including their guests, were fed, before she would depart and oversee the management of the house, and at midday, she would go to the healing rooms and try to find some herb or plant that the Maester had missed that would help wake her little lost wolf. In the afternoons, she would make sure the children had attended their lessons before training with Jory, Robb, Jon and Theon. Once she was done there, she would oversee the dinner feasts and then head to Bran's room, where she spent the night watching over her sleeping brother with their mother.

Catelyn and Caryssa had grown even closer during this ordeal, forming an alliance against Ned and Maester Luwin when the two men would insist they go and get some rest, perhaps something to eat. In their eyes, they had failed Bran. Catelyn believed that if she had been stricter with him and his climbing, he would have listened to her about not climbing and he would not be a cripple, should he live at all. Caryssa believed that if she had not left to hunt with the men, if she could only have been content with living the life of an ordinary lady, then maybe she would have been there to watch over him, make sure he did not act so recklessly. Both women believed that they had much to atone for, and so seemed to punish themselves by not sleeping and starving themselves.

Yet nothing could persuade them to change their habits, or at least Caryssa's habits, until one man finally took action. She had brought Rickon and Arya to break their fast with the rest of their family and the king and his family, a rare sight as the families usually ate apart, and made to leave when an arm snaked around her waist, stopping her.

Caryssa turned her head and glared at the man who belonged to the arm gripping her middle, and he did not show that her anger bothered him in the slightest. He pulled her down onto the bench, and put a plate of food in front of her. Just a roll of bread and a goblet of water, since he knew that her starving stomach would not be able to take much more than that.

"Sit down and eat." Jaime ordered, not caring about any gentlemanly airs or graces. Caryssa just stared at him, wondering why he was doing this, before shaking her head.

"You are wasting my time, Ser Jaime. I am not hungry and I have things to attend to. So if you'll excuse me." She said, as she tried to get up again, but this time the king spoke up. He had not intervened with her self-destructive ways as he felt it was Ned's place, but clearly the girl refused to listen to her father's reasoning, so he decided to pull rank on her as king.

"You will sit down and eat, girl. We can't have you wasting away into nothing. You'll be no use to your brother if you're dead." The king snapped at her, and Caryssa lowered her eyes to the plate in front of her for a second, feeling like a scolded child, but raised her head, her eyes narrowed into a harsh glare, and began to eat. Everyone else began to eat, as soon as they were certain she had, but the table remained quiet. The adults were silent because of the tension in the room, and the children were silent because they were simply afraid to speak without angering someone, particularly the practically growling she-wolf.

"Lady Caryssa, are there any signs that the boy is going to wake?" Tyrion questioned, the only one who seemed to be brave or bold enough to talk about the broken wolf pup in his sick bed.

"The Maester says that he is unsure when Bran will wake. My mother and I try to make him as comfortable as we can, but there is not much we can do but wait." Caryssa answered after a long pause, her voice quiet and her eyes on her goblet of water.

"Maester Luwin tells me that you spend your afternoons in the healing rooms, surrounded by books. Why not the library? Is that not a better place for reading?"

"The books on healing are in the healing rooms, Lord Tyrion. I have no need of the library tower when the books I desire are not there." Caryssa remarked, her eyes flickering to him, an almost dark fire, just barely simmering, burning inside the bright blue orbs.

The little lion was going to ask one more question when it appeared the she-wolf had enough of their tense-filled conversation.

She finished the roll of bread, and drained her glass of water, smacking the goblet down hard onto the table, before she climbed to her feet, gave a low, mocking curtsey to her king and lord father and quickly left, without any words to her family, her betrothed or her king as she did so.

"That girl's temper is enough to frighten armies." Robert said to his old friend, who nodded to his words. His daughter did not have a quick temper by any means, but should she feel threatened or pushed, there was a rage inside her ready to be released.

"She disrespected her king." Cersei snapped, with a scowl on her face.

"She meant no disrespect, Your Grace. My sister is under a lot of stress." Robb quickly stated, coming to the aid of his sister, knowing that she could be punished for something as trivial as mocking the King.

"Don't shit yourself, boy. I know she didn't mean it. She's a Stark. You're a stubborn lot, and your women have worse tempers than Baratheon men." The King said, guffawing at his own words. Ours is the Fury were the words of House Baratheon, but Robert could tell that the Stark girl, the double of his Lyanna, could rival even his temper if pushed.

"She's a she-wolf, Your Grace. When one of the pack is under threat, the she-wolves become dangerous and deadly to all." Ned said, and Robert nodded his head, his eyes misting over as his mind fled to his memories of his own Stark love. Lyanna had a fierceness in her that only flared up when her family was threatened.

"Caryssa is strong," Cersei mused, and Jaime could see the cogs turning in his sister's head. Their eyes connected, and he shook his head so slightly that only she would have caught it. "She has taken on the management of your house, and the care of your youngest children, as well as helping in the care of your boy. She'll make a dutiful wife for my brother."

"Lucky me. I've always wanted a dutiful wife." Jaime said sarcastically, a sour look on his face as he looked at his sister still. Ned Stark looked at the Kingslayer with contempt in his eyes. He had taken Jaime's words as an insult to his daughter, rather than the intended insult to his sister. Yet it wasn't the Lord Stark who voiced his take on the imagined slight.

"You could do no better than my sister, Lannister. She's better than any man deserves." Robb said, glaring at the golden haired lion with as much fury as the young wolf could muster, though he did nothing but spark the lion's amusement.

"I hope I did not offend. Your sister is a remarkable woman, I admit, but she doesn't need you to champion her cause. I'm fairly certain she could do that herself." Jaime remarked, and Robb's anger seemed to dissipate slightly at the kingslayer's words, which only made the golden man smirk at the younger man.

Robb spent the rest of breakfast, glaring at his bacon, and visualising the many ways he could kill his sister's betrothed and not suffer the consequences of the murder.

"I like Lady Caryssa. She's not like the rest of the simpering roses you find in the capital. There's a real fire in her…or was." Tyrion said, as he sipped wine from his goblet, his eyes on his brother. He had watched Jaime the entire time his betrothed was in the room, and while there was his usual uncaring, sarcastic glee in his eyes, there was a hint of concern for the woman.

Tyrion was beginning to believe that the Lady Caryssa must be some sort of enchantress or sorceress or siren or something, as his brother was slowly becoming bewitched. Though truthfully, he was just thankful that his brother and sister were no longer involved with each other. It was one less secret that he had to worry about someone stumbling across. If only Cersei was smart enough not to get involved with their cousin, the Stark boy would probably not be crippled in his bed.

"If anything, my lord, I believe that my brother's fall has only stoked the fire in my sister." Robb said, and all around the table silenced again, thinking through the implications of the young wolf's words.

~*~

"Lady Caryssa, please take some rest. Bran's awakening is not dependent on you and your mother harming yourselves." Maester Luwin said, as he followed the young woman he had helped bring into this world as she rushed about the castle, seeing to the overall running of the household.

"My mother sits by Bran's side all day and all night, and my father spends most of his time with Robb, making sure that he is ready to take on the responsibilities as the Lord of Winterfell when we go to King's Landing, which leaves my mother's role as the lady of the house up to me," Caryssa said, pausing as she stopped a kitchen hand to bring up another barrel of ale as the ones they had were getting low. Lord Tyrion truly did drink all night and was putting a massive strain on their supply of ale. "I have a million and one tasks to complete, along with looking after Rickon, Arya and Sansa, and completing my own duties. It is too much for one person, yet I have no choice because if I stop…"

It was then that Maester Luwin saw that the she-wolf was truly fearful for her brother's life, and was distracting herself by any means possible from the horrible thought that he may not live.

"If I stop, then my mind begins to wander to dark places it does not belong and I begin to question things that are too dangerous to even question inside the safety of my head." Caryssa said, as they stopped in one of the corridors.

"Such as what, my lady?"

"Such things can not be spoken of out in the open. Or at all. Like I said, they are too dangerous and I am too busy. If I promise to sleep for a while in the afternoon, will you watch the children?" Caryssa questioned, and a smile spread across the old man's face.

"Of course, my lady."

Caryssa paused a moment, thinking her next question through fully in her head before she voiced it aloud.

"What do you think of Ser Jaime, Maester Luwin? They say he is a man without honour, the terrible Kingslayer…what say you?" She questioned, her eyes narrowing as she scrutinised his face.

Caryssa's instincts on when a man was lying to her had always been pretty sharp, but Maester Luwin had either never told her a lie, or was very skilled at hiding when he was. He was a very hard man to read.

"I believe that deep down he is a good man, and that we cannot truly understand his motivations for his actions in the event you speak of as he has never given any to my knowledge. If you are worried about your betrothal, I am certain the king will postpone the wedding until you are ready." Maester Luwin replied, and Caryssa could see the concern in his eyes.

Caryssa shook her head with a sad smile. She was not sad that she was marrying Ser Jaime, or about her impending marriage in general. She had long ago accepted that a man worthy of her would come for her one day, but she did not know Ser Jaime all that well, nor had it come at an opportune time. She was needed in her household, she didn't want to leave them now.

"Father and the king wish for us to be married as soon as possible. My wedding will be a couple of weeks after we reach King's Landing," Caryssa replied, and tried to make her smile seem more real, but with her brother on his sick bed, still appearing to be asleep, it only came across as a twisted grimace. "I'm not worried about Ser Jaime at any rate. I'm sure he'll make a good enough husband."

"Then why do you ask?"

"You have guided my parents through their marriage, and their trials and troubles, and I trust your counsel above nearly all others…I simply wanted your judgement. I would not want to marry and not receive your judgement of my betrothed." She actually managed to smile for him this time, though it lacked the warmth her smiles usually held.

"Oh child, sometimes I feel unworthy of the high esteem in which you hold me," The old man said, returning her smile, before he gestured at some of the papers in her hands. "What are those?"

"I was taking inventory before you arrived. This visit from the king has really put our stock under strain. These are lists of things that we need to order before I leave for King's Landing so that those in Winterfell won't end up starving and freezing in the absence of my father and myself."

"This is the steward's job." Luwin said, as he took the lists out of her hands, looking them over herself.

"I know, but I want to be sure that I've taken care of everything. I don't want to leave Robb any stress." Caryssa said, as she held her hand out for him to give her back her lists, but the old man shook his head. He had had enough of Caryssa taking on more than she could handle in her sleep deprived and emotional state.

"My lady, leave this to Poole while he is here, I will deal with the rest of your tasks today. As the maester, and an old man who loves you as dearly as he would his own, I am telling you to rest in your rooms for the rest of the day," Maester Luwin said, hurrying on when it looked like the young woman was going to protest his orders. "Do I need to escort you to your chambers or will you be able to find your way there yourself?"

"No need, Maester Luwin, I'll escort her." A quiet, but gruff voice said, and Caryssa turned around to see Jon standing behind her, the same sadness in his eyes that reflected the looks in all of her families faces.

Caryssa wanted to argue, but as soon as she knew that Luwin would take her duties off of her hands for the day and seeing the worry in her younger brother's eyes, her lack of sleep seemed to spring to the forefront of her mind. She had not slept for nearly a week now, and that realisation seemed to make her nearly fall asleep where she stood.

So she nodded, and took Jon's hand, leaning in to his body for support and let him lead her down the corridors and hallways to her room, where he put her into bed, taking her boots off for her. Her younger brother tucked her under furs, pressed a loving kiss to her brow and drew the shutters so the room was somewhat darker.

He had not even left the room when the gentle, barely audible snores drifted from his now unconscious half-sister. Jon Snow smiled at the eldest Stark girl, a grim, worried smile, but the first one he had smiled since his brother's fall. Watching her a moment, he realised that the only time his sister truly looked at peace was when she was fast asleep, and thought it a tragedy.


	8. The Pack Divides

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Because what am I but a lost traveler,  
> Caught between my past and my present,  
> Needing the stars to guide me on my way."
> 
> -Unknown

Caryssa had dreaded this day. 

It had been three weeks since Bran’s fall, and while the Maester had confirmed he would not die from his fall, he had still yet to wake. Caryssa, under much duress from her father, brothers and her betrothed, had taken more time to care for herself, getting slightly more sleep and eating more.

Only this meant that her rapid improvement in health stopped delaying the inevitable. 

Today they rode for King’s Landing. Caryssa had packed her things and had a maid take them to one of the carts. Sansa was also ready, having already said her goodbyes as she was eager to get on the road and on her way to her ‘new life’. Caryssa had only rolled her eyes at her sister when she had spoken those words, before she went about her business, making sure that everything else was ready, but Poole had waved her off when she tried to check over their supplies and belongings.

Which, of course, had only left one more thing for her to do; saying goodbye to the family she would be leaving behind in favor of another. She had already said goodbye to her mother, and a still sleeping Bran, making her mother vow that she would send a raven the moment he woke.

She didn’t need to say goodbye to Jon just yet. He had always been honest with her in his desire to join the Night’s Watch and become a ranger, so it didn’t come as a surprise to her when he had told her he was leaving for the Wall with their uncle. Caryssa feared for him, though, and had one try at convincing him to stay with Robb. Jon was stubborn, though, and not even the rumors of the White Walkers would dissuade him. 

This left Robb and Rickon. Her other two boys. 

She had saddled Snow, her weapons in her saddle bag in case she needed them, and she sighed when she saw Robb approach, already trying to stop the tears that threatened to fall. How could she leave the other half of her behind? How could she live without half her soul?

Robb seemed to be having the same dilemma, his Tully blues welling up with the same emotions she was enduring. Caryssa’s resolve broke, and she hurtled herself at her younger brother, clinging to him like it would be the last time they would ever see each other again. Robb held her just as tightly, his hand fisted in her dark locks, his other wound around her waist. Her arms snaked round his neck, her fingers tangling themselves into his hair and shirt. They both refused to cry, but it was inevitable. 

“I do not know how I will bear this.” Caryssa whispered, knowing that there were many witnesses to their sad embrace but not caring in the slightest.

“We’ll bear this because we have to,” Robb said, leaning back slightly, his fingers reaching to the pale skin of her cheeks and wiping away her tears. “The North will never look as lovely now that it has lost its Beauty.”

Caryssa chuckled at him weakly, tears still streaming down her face, and she cupped his cheek with her hand, her thumb swiping along his cheekbone, memorizing her dear brother’s face. 

“Promise me something.” She said, and Robb quickly nodded, knowing he would promise her anything her heart desired in their parting moment.

“Anything, Ryssa. Anything you ask of me.”

“Do not forget who we are. Winter is coming, and our pack is dividing…you cannot forget that we are Starks of Winterfell, we are the wolves of the North, and we are strong, even when we are apart. The North remembers, and so must you. Promise that no matter what happens in our future, that you will always remember the strength to be found in our family.”

“I promise.” Robb said, his words earnest and sincere. Caryssa smiled her watery smile at him, and leaned forward to press her lips to his cheek, not even scrunching her nose up at the bristles that irritated her lips on contact. 

“Keep our family safe, keep the North secure and find happiness, little brother. I’ll send ravens, and you have to send ravens to me. It will be painful enough to not be able to just walk down the hall should I need to talk to you, but to endure no contact at all would surely kill me.” Caryssa said, hugging her brother to her again once he had nodded, before she felt something latch onto her leg and almost made her and Robb fall to the ground. 

Caryssa looked down and found a sobbing Rickon clinging to her skirt, his eyes red, his nose running and Shaggydog crying with him, probably at the loss of four sevenths of his own siblings. Rhaenyra, Lady and Nymeria would of course be accompanying their mistresses to King’s Landing, and Ghost would follow Jon to the Wall. It was two packs dividing, and Caryssa was apprehensive about it for more than one reason. Her instincts were telling her to beg her father to not go to King’s Landing, but she only had one reason why they shouldn’t; Bran. 

She heaved Rickon up into her arms, hugging him to her as he wrapped himself around her and kissed his forehead as he sobbed into her neck.

“Why are you all leaving?” The little pup cried.

“Father is the Hand of the King now. He’s even more important than he was before, and Sansa and I are going to get married, remember? Sansa is marrying the prince and I am marrying Ser Jaime, and we’re going to live in King’s Landing with them.” Caryssa explained once more, rubbing his back with one hand and running the fingers of the other through his hair in a soothing motion.

“Why do you have to marry Ser Jaime? Why do you have to leave?”

“Because I have to have a family of my own, pup, but believe me, if I could bring you with me, I would, but there must always be a Stark in Winterfell and Robb, Bran and Mother need you. Someone has to look after them all for me, do you think you can do that?” Caryssa questioned, pulling him away from her a little bit, so she could look into little Rickon’s eyes. 

Rickon nodded, his eyes wide to convey how serious he was. 

“I know you can. You have to be strong for me, my darling brother, okay? Mother is watching over Bran, so she won’t be able to look after you as much as she used to, and Robb will be very busy, so you have to be strong, play with Shaggydog, attend your lessons, and be a good boy for me, okay? Do you promise?” Caryssa pressed, and when her little brother nodded, she smiled weakly and kissed his cheek.

“My lady, your father is ready to leave now.” One of their household servants informed her, and she sighed, but nodded.

“Come on, little pup, I have to go now. Hug Robb for me.” She said, passing Rickon to Robb, and the little wolf pup’s crying intensified, and thoroughly dragged Caryssa’s heart through the mud. 

Caryssa kissed Robb’s cheek one last time, before she turned, heart heavy, and mounted Snow, not turning her head to look back at her brothers once. If she did, she knew that she would lose her resolve again, and would try her hardest to stay in Winterfell with them. 

So she pushed Snow into a trot, hurrying forward to where her father and Jon stood waiting for her. Sansa and Arya would be riding in a carriage with Septa Mordane and Jeyne Poole, the steward’s daughter, but Caryssa never liked the confining shelter of a carriage. She preferred the burn of the cold Northern winds on her face, the feel of it whipping through her hair…it was like a true freedom she would never experience as a woman. 

She greeted her father, her uncle and brother with a solemn face, and nodded towards them, a sign that she was ready to leave. Ned Stark knew that it was tearing his daughter apart to leave their family, almost as much as it was killing him to do the same, but it was necessary. He believed the king could be in danger, and he had sworn his best friend an oath long ago to always come when called upon. So he returned his daughter’s grave nod, and they rode off, their home at their backs and their futures ahead.

Six Starks left Winterfell that day, dividing the pack, but a dark thought crept into Caryssa’s mind as she rode out of the gates of her home…how many would return?

~*~

Before joining the king’s caravan, Ned and Caryssa had to see Jon off. He would be joining the Night’s Watch, following in his uncle’s footsteps, and Lord Tyrion seemed to be accompanying them. Before he rode off with her uncle, Caryssa called to the heir of Casterly Rock and halted his progression northwards. 

“Lord Tyrion!” She called, leaving her father and brother to say their goodbyes to say her own to her future good-brother. 

“Lady Stark.” Tyrion said in greeting. 

“I have come to say goodbye, my lord, and to express my hopes that you’ll have a safe journey to the Wall.” Caryssa smiled with as much warmth as she could muster (which was not very much). 

Out of all the Lannisters, including Ser Jaime, Caryssa identified more with the sarcastic dwarf the most. He was the very first who came to offer his condolences when he heard about Bran, and visited frequently. Caryssa was shocked by his kindness, and promised him that she would never forget it. They had talked many times over his stay in Winterfell, and she would even go so far to say that they had formed a friendship. One she was sure she would be thankful for some time in the future.

“Many thanks, my lady. I hope to return in time for your wedding, but should I not, I offer you my congratulations and my humble apology now.” Tyrion said, clasping his hand to his heart, making play at being completely sincere and Caryssa managed a laugh for him. It took a lot to make her laugh since her brother’s fall, let alone by a person she still deemed an ‘outsider’.

“I will accept them, my lord, only on the condition that you watch over my brother while you are with him. My brothers make play that they are men, but they are still boys in my eyes at least…I fear he does not really understand what he is getting himself into.” Caryssa said, and Tyrion nodded.

“I accept those terms, my lady, but what could I do to protect your brother? He is much taller than me, and has better skill with a blade.”

“A sword is a soldier’s weapon, my friend, but you are not a soldier. You can protect him with your mind, and your words. I am already indebted to you for your kindness to my brother, Bran, but if you could also do this for me, well…the Lannisters are not the only ones who repay their debts.” Caryssa stated, and Tyrion could see the same honor and seriousness that was in her lord father behind her Tully blue eyes. He could see that there was also a slim amount of trust in her eyes, she trusted him, and he found that his own face had taken on a rare seriousness that he usually tried to avoid.

“Consider it a wedding gift, my dear sister,” Tyrion replied, watching a spark of warmth enter her eyes at his words. It almost made him smile, that warmth in the Ice Lady’s eyes. Tales were told in the North of the warmth that the Beauty of the North showed only to those she deemed worthy, and it seemed she thought him worthy of it too. That was an accomplishment he was truly proud of. “Now, I bid you farewell. Until next we meet.”

“Until next we meet, brother.” Caryssa smiled, nodding her head regally, before turning her horse around and riding back towards her true brother. 

Her father had taken his leave, waiting for her a little ways off, giving her and Jon some privacy for their goodbye. Caryssa edged her horse as close to Jon’s as possible, and awkwardly hugged him to her. Jon returned her embrace, knowing that he was going to miss her comforting presence when they departed from each other, before he pulled away.

“I will miss you, Stark.” Jon stated, and Caryssa smiled at him weakly, the fears she mentioned to Tyrion playing on her mind.

“And you, Stark,” Caryssa replied, and quickly hurried on when Jon opened his mouth to protest her words. “You are a Stark. You always have been and you always will be, and nothing in this world, no cruel words or harsh tortures could get me to say otherwise. You are my brother, my blood, and I want you to remember that. Which is why I got you this.” 

Jon watched in silence as his sister reached underneath her cloak, into her boot, and pulled out something wrapped in cloth. She handed it to him, and gestured for him to open it with a nod of her head. Jon’s eyes lowered to the black cloth, an homage to the new path he had put himself on, and slowly unwrapped it. 

A silver wolf pin lay on the dark cloth, and Jon raised his eyes to look at her, only to see hers were on her gift to him. 

“It is the same-” Jon started, but his sister cut him off.

“The same as mine. I wanted you to have a piece of me with you, a piece of the family. I had it made for you when Uncle Benjen came to me and told me that you had asked him about joining him again,” Caryssa said, still staring at the silver wolf, her gloved fingers touching its twin which was pinned to the belt of her dress. She shook her head, and then wrapped her arms around her brother again, pressing her lips against his prickly cheek. “Do not forget me, Jon Stark.”

“Not even the white walkers could make me forget you, Caryssa Stark.” Jon whispered back, kissing the side of her head, before letting her go. 

“Farewell, brother.” Caryssa said, moving away from him slightly.

“Farewell, sister.”

Jon stayed where he was and watched his sister gallop towards their father, and then watched as the pair disappeared over the hillside together. The dark haired bastard paused a moment longer, before he turned his horse to follow his uncle and the Lannister dwarf, wondering how long it would be until he next welcomed his family’s embraces.


	9. A Bite Worse Than Its Bark

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "One isn't necessarily born with courage, but one is born with potential.  
> Without courage, we cannot practice any other virtue with consistency.  
> We can't be kind, true, merciful, generous, or honest."
> 
> -Maya Angelou

A week later, when they had stopped at an inn for another respite after a long day of riding, Caryssa was helping Septa Mordane finish setting up the tent she would be sharing with Arya and Sansa, with Rhaenyra always at her heels. Her sisters had wandered off; Arya taking Nymeria to go find the butcher’s son, Mycah, whom she had made friends with, and Sansa leading Lady along on a short leather leash. Caryssa had let them wander off, preferring to get everything done without the added stress of her younger sisters squabbling like babes.

As Caryssa busied herself with making hers and her sisters’ beds, she thought about her journey so far. The journey along the Kingsroad had thus far proved to be uneventful. They had already stopped three or four times, the last halt being at Moat Caitlin. Their next stop after this would most likely be The Twins. Caryssa wasn’t particularly looking forward to that. Her mother had told her about Lord Walder Frey, and how his lust for women and power had not diminished with his age. His wives got younger and younger as he got older and older. Caryssa could only hope that having her betrothed at her side, no matter how much Ser Jaime annoyed her, and would be enough for the old miser to leave her be.

She was pulled out of her worried thoughts by Rhaenyra growling. 

“What is wrong with that wolf?” Septa Mordane questioned, as they both looked at the angry direwolf.

“I think that might be my fault.”

Caryssa turned to the opening of the tent, and stared at Ser Jaime as he stood just inside the tent, his eyes on her. 

“You can’t be in here…Ser.” Septa Mordane snapped, only adding his title on at the end as she remembered her propriety. 

“I wished to talk to my betrothed…alone.” He shot a sharp look towards the septa, who, though she wanted to protest that it was improper for a young unmarried woman to be alone in a tent with a man, bit her tongue and quickly left, though not without giving the Lannister lion a glance that screamed bloody repercussions should anything indecent occur.

Caryssa eyed Jaime with suspicion, but continued to make Arya’s cot up, so it would be ready for her to sleep in come the night. 

“What do you wish to talk about?” Caryssa dared to ask, sensing that it was most likely something that would make her more miserable than she already was. 

“Well first, my sister has moved our wedding forward. We’ll be man and wife a week after we arrive in King’s Landing.”

Caryssa froze, turning her head towards the golden knight, shock clear on her face.

“Why?” She gaped.

“It seems my father wants us to start making heirs as soon as possible.” Caryssa glared at him, before turning away from him. 

Her mother had told her what to expect from marriage, what to expect from the bedding and Septa Mordane had tried to help as well, as best she could. Her best source of knowledge on that subject had actually come from one of Theon’s whores. Caryssa had caught the woman leaving Theon’s room and curiosity got the best of her. Ros, Theon’s favourite whore, answered all her questions in shocking detail, but for once, Caryssa was actually thankful for bluntness. It meant she had a very good idea as to what she was going to be in for come her wedding night. She had just expected to have more time.

“I’m a Lady of the North, not a mare used for breeding,” Caryssa seethed, fury glinting in her eyes as she dropped the sheet in her hands and turned back to him. “And I will not be treated like one. Not even by the Queen’s brother.”

“Did I manage to light a fire in the Ice Lady? That must go on my list of achievements,” Jaime teased her, and Caryssa just continued to glare at him, refusing to let his words amuse her. “We were going to have to get married anyway, might as well make it as soon as possible, and the sooner we are married, the sooner we make our fathers happy by giving them grandchildren.”

“And I’m sure that giving your father grandchildren is the only reason you want to bed me as quickly as possible. I’m sure it has nothing to do with your own base desires.” Caryssa replied dryly.

Before Ser Jaime could reply with something she knew would be vulgar and rude, her father burst into the tent, with Sansa at his heels, pushing past the Lannister lord and storming towards his eldest daughter.

“Have you seen Arya? Has she been here?” 

Caryssa had only seen her father this panicked and flustered when Bran had fallen from the tower. She looked to Sansa, but her sister seemed just as shaken. Caryssa instantly pulled her sister into an embrace, holding her slightly trembling body to her own. Sansa seemed to be somewhat comforted by this, and the shaking stopped.

“What’s wrong? What happened with Arya?” Caryssa questioned, grabbing hold of Ned’s arm to stop him from leaving the tent. “What is going on?”

“Arya’s wolf bit the prince. Sansa said Arya fled with Nymeria. I need to go out and look for her.” Ned replied, and Caryssa’s eyes widened in shock. How could things already be so messy? They had not even made it to the lion’s den yet. Then her eyes darkened. The prince must’ve been doing something to Arya in order for Nymeria to attack him. She just hoped that her sister was not harmed, because she was not sure she would be able to control her temper and stop herself from finishing what the wolf started.

“I’ll come with you.” Caryssa started, but her father and Ser Jaime blocked her exit. 

“No, I need you to stay here. Arya might return. I need her in safe hands. There are none safer than yours.” Her father stated, and Caryssa reluctantly nodded.

Ned left quickly, but Jaime lingered, watching as his betrothed maneuvered her sister to perch on the edge of one of the cots. Caryssa dropped to her knees in front of Sansa, the younger girl gazing down at her in wide eyed curiosity.

“Sansa, you need to tell me exactly what happened. Why did Nymeria bite Prince Joffrey?” When Caryssa saw her hesitance, her Tully blue eyes glancing at Ser Jaime and away again, and Caryssa took her hands and softened her voice. “Pretend he isn’t here. It’s just you and I, little wolf. Tell me.

“We were walking, Joffrey and I, and he offered me some more wine. That’s when we heard Arya and the butcher’s boy pretending to be knights with wooden sticks. The butcher’s son hit Arya, and Joffrey cut his face with his sword,” Sansa recounted, her words almost blurring together with how quickly she was speaking. Sansa’s eyes filled with tears. “It was terrible, Caryssa! Arya hit Joffrey with her stick, and then he…and then Nymeria bit his arm. Arya took his sword and tossed it in the lake and ran off.”

“And then he what, Lady Sansa?” Jaime questioned, stepping closer to the two women, but keeping an appropriate distance. He didn’t want to intimidate the girl when she was already clearly shaken and terrified. 

“He-he…” Sansa trailed off, but Caryssa squeezed her hands and gave her a nod of encouragement, but the young girl shook her head. Sansa was terrified of what the repercussions would be if she spoke against her betrothed. She didn’t want him to cast her aside because she wouldn’t lie for him. “I don’t remember.”

“Sansa-“

Caryssa was cut off as a couple of Lannister soldiers opened the tent flaps, and walked in. Caryssa rose to her feet, a look of outrage spread across her face.

“Who permitted you to enter my tent without my expressed permission, without even announcing yourselves?” Caryssa questioned, her voice at a regular level, though there was so much venom in her voice that the occupants of the tent were surprised that the two soldiers had not dropped dead.

“The Queen, my lady. She requests that the Lady Sansa be brought before the King to testify against her sister and her sister’s wolf for attacking Prince Joffrey. We were sent to retrieve her.”

“You will retrieve nothing. I will escort my sister to the King myself, and Ser Jaime will come with us. You both should make yourself scarce, because if I see either of you near my tent again, I’ll have you both flogged for your indecency.” Caryssa hissed, hauling her sister to her feet, and barging past the two Lannister guards, who balked at her rage. 

Jaime followed behind the two females, laughing loudly at the terrified expressions of his father’s men. He would have to speak to his father about that. Lannister soldiers should fearsome and brave, not be frightened by angry women. Even if that angry woman is Caryssa Stark. 

Lions do not fear the wolves, not matter how fierce their bark or bite may be.

Caryssa, half-dragging her sister behind her, tried to maintain some grace and dignity as she marched into the Inn, and was promptly led by a guard to where the King, Queen, her father and Arya were convened, surrounded by some of the southern entourage and a few men of the North, namely Jory. Seeing a few friendly faces made Caryssa feel a little bit braver, as she stepped forward, with her sister shielded behind her, to address the royals.

“Lady Caryssa, I was told you were asleep. You brought your sister with you, I take it?” The King smiled at her, and she nodded once, a frown marring her face. Not exactly the smile the King had been hoping to see. It was so much like her aunt’s.

“I did, but I would like to be told why exactly she was summoned here in the first place, and why Arya was not brought to our tent. They need rest if we are to be travelling again in the morning.” Caryssa replied, managing to hold back her anger as she spoke to the King, though she did not manage to stop her eyes from narrowing at the Queen, who was smirking at her.

“Your sister and the butcher’s boy attacked my son, beat him with clubs and disarmed him, before they set her little beast on him,” The Queen hissed, and Caryssa turned to glance at Arya, who shook her head at the Queen’s words. So that wasn’t what happened. She would believe her younger sister over the Lannister Queen any day of the year. Arya would never lie to her over something so serious. “Joff’s arm was nearly ripped off.”

“The Prince still has both his arms well intact, as far as I can see. If Nymeria had wanted his arm, she’d have it,” Caryssa explained, as calmly as she possibly could while staring down the Queen, who hated her beyond all rational explanation. “Besides, I oversaw the training of all the direwolf pups. They would not attack without provocation.”

“What are you saying, Lady Stark?” King Robert questioned, and Caryssa turned her eyes back to him. 

“I’m saying, Your Grace, that I fear the Prince, Arya and the butcher’s boy were roughhousing and it got a little out of hand. Maybe someone got too violent with their play, and Nymeria saw it as a threat to her owner. She-wolves are infamous for their protective nature, especially when it comes to their cubs. Almost as protective as a lioness.” Caryssa answered, her eyes looking pointedly at the Queen, whose lip curled down in a sneer at her comment. 

“She attacked me, my lady! She did!” Joffrey insisted, trying to bring Caryssa to his side. On their journey, he had often talked to the Northern lady, bragged rather, and made quite crude comments, and Caryssa knew that he, like his father, had an interest in her that went beyond her status as the Hand’s daughter or Jaime Lannister’s future bride. 

“I would like to hear Lady Sansa’s testimony now, then maybe I can get some bloody answers and be done with this blasted mess,” The King grumbled, and Caryssa reluctantly stepped aside, nudging her sister forward, but keeping a hold of her shoulders, keeping her in front of her. “Now, child, tell me what happened. Tell it all and tell it true. It’s a great crime to lie to a King.”

Sansa glanced at our father, then at the prince, and then over her shoulder at her elder sister, and Caryssa could tell she was nervous. She didn’t want to displease Joffrey, as they were to be married, nor did she want to anger father or Ryssa by not standing by the family, so the eldest Stark woman smiled at her as warm as she could manage in the stressful situation, and squeezed her shoulders gently, encouraging her to answer truthfully.

Sansa turned back to King Robert, and sighed deeply. 

“I don’t know. I don’t remember. Everything happened so fast. I didn’t see.” Sansa said, trying to be diplomatic. 

Arya didn’t see it that way. She surged forward, almost knocking Caryssa to the ground, and tried to grab Sansa’s hair. She would have managed if it had not been for Jaime grabbing her about her waist and physically holding her away from the red-headed Stark. Arya still struggled in the Lannister man’s arms, until she caught the murderous look on her eldest sister’s face, one that was mirrored by her father. 

“She’s as wild as that animal of hers. I want her punished.” Cersei stated, her victorious smirk plastered back on her face.

Caryssa was beginning to feel her father’s dislike for the Lannisters now. She felt as though she wanted to knock the Queen down and rip that bloody smirk off of her beautiful face, but her own sense of propriety and decorum held her rage within her, and stopped her from doing something that could very well lead her to losing her head.

Arya was placed back on her feet, calmer now, and she glared at her sister’s betrothed, wanting to beat his smirk of his face, unaware that her thoughts were terrifyingly similar to her eldest sister’s. 

“What exactly would you have me do, whip her through the streets?” King Robert demanded, barely looking up at his wife from where he sat in his chair. Cersei glared down at him from where she stood at his side, when she realized he was not going to give her the satisfaction she wanted. “Damn it, children fight. It’s over.”

“Joffrey will bear these scars for the rest of his life.” Cersei reminded her husband, but all it did was make the King turn to his son, a look of disappointment in his eyes. 

“You let that little girl disarm you?” Robert questioned his son, and Caryssa saw the shame in the Prince’s eyes for causing his father to be disappointed in him. “Ned, see to it that your daughter is disciplined. I’ll do the same with my son.”

“Gladly, Your Grace.” Ned replied, turning with a gesture to all three of his daughters, meaning for them to follow him out. King Robert climbed out of his chair, wanting to wish the Lady Caryssa a good night, when his queen stopped them all where they stood.

“And what of the direwolf? What of the beast that savaged your son?”

“I’d forgot the damned wolf.” King Robert mumbled, turning to one of the Lannister guards behind him, looking at him expectantly.

“We found no trace of the direwolf, Your Grace.”

“No? So be it.” The King said, turning to leave once more, eager to speak with the woman who resembled his Lyanna.

“We have another wolf.” 

Caryssa snapped her eyes towards the queen, and glared at her. She knew that Rhaenyra was perfectly fine in her tent, Septa Mordane would never let the wolf be taken without Caryssa’s consent, so that meant they had Lady.

“As you will.” 

“You can’t mean it.” Ned uttered to his oldest friend, as he brushed past him, urging his king to see sense. Sansa had done no wrong and neither had her direwolf.

“A direwolf is no pet. Get her a dog. She’ll be happier for it.” Robert replied, and Caryssa could no longer remain diplomatic and calm. 

“And where is the justice in that, Your Grace? Lady has done no wrong, neither has Sansa. The wolf who committed this ‘crime’ is long gone, what sense is there in mindless bloodshed?” Caryssa questioned, her eyes screaming bloody repercussions and her hands curled into fists. She couldn’t stand by and see Lady slaughtered, especially not with Nymeria gone. Her sisters needed as many comforts from home as they could have and Lady was the best thing there was. “What sense is there in the murder of an innocent animal and the heartbreak of a young girl?”

“The wolves are wild, my lady. They belong in the wilds of the North, not in the capitol. They aren’t meant to be tamed.”

“And yet you would take me from my home in the North, where I belong, and try to tame me,” Caryssa commented, causing many in the room to chuckle at her words. Jaime smirked at her as she tried to convince the king to change his mind. “Should I be killed too, Your Grace? Perhaps you can find Sansa a new sister in the South, one that belongs there, one she’d be happier for.”

“Now, wait a minute-”

“Leashes!” Caryssa cut him off, making the king turn red with anger, but pause when he registered what she had actually said. “The remaining wolves wear leashes at all time, until we get to the capitol and then they are only allowed to be free of them in our rooms. No death, no slaughter of innocent animals. A compromise that is fair and just to all.”

The King was silent a moment, considering her word, his eyes on hers at all time. Just like Lyanna, he mused silently, always bloody fighting against the smallest of injustices. Caryssa, Sansa, Arya and Ned all waited with bated breath, hoping that the She-Wolf’s compromise would be accepted. 

Finally, Robert nodded, and Caryssa smiled widely at him, much to his pleasure.

“They must be leashed at all times, girl, do you hear me? Don’t let me catch them running wild.” The King warned, and Caryssa nodded wordlessly, grateful for the lenience, even if the Queen was not. 

“Robert, you cannot be-” Cersei started, but the King raised his hand and silenced her.

“That is my command. No more discussion.” And with that said, the King stormed away, grumbling about wild kids and bloody wives nagging him.

Ned, grateful that Sansa would no longer lose her direwolf and Caryssa had not gotten herself into trouble, decided that he would take his three daughters back to their tent. Except Caryssa resisted, when he tried to nudge her towards the door. Instead, she walked towards the Queen and Prince, much to everyone’s surprise.

“Does it pain you much, my prince?” She questioned, showing genuine concern to the boy who had tried to get her sister flogged or worse. 

Joffrey was stunned at this turn of events, but shook his head, quickly putting on an air of bravado and arrogance, thinking that was the kind of act that she would like, and not knowing that it was the opposite. 

“No, my lady. It did at first, but the pain is barely there now.”

“I am glad, but should it bother you, my maester gifted me with some salves that would soothe your wound. I’d be more than happy to share it with you.” Caryssa offered, trying to ease some of the tension that the whole Arya-Joffrey-Nymeria situation had created between the two families.

“T-that’s very kind of you, my lady, but I’m sure it won’t be necessary. Like I said, it doesn’t hurt too badly.” Joffrey replied, and Caryssa smiled politely at him, before nodding once, and, with one simple half-glare at the Queen, she turned her back on the two royals and proceeded to leave with her family, mending bridges with the person she saw as the biggest threat should he remain displeased.

Jaime followed his betrothed out of the Inn, though he stopped her before she could follow her family into the females’ tent. She looked at him quizzically, but remained with him outside of the tent, curious as to what he had to say to her.

“Well played, little wife.”

“I’m not your wife yet, Ser Jaime. And I’m sure I have no idea what you mean.”

“Appeasing Joffrey? The heir to the throne? You’re playing the game well, I must say.” Jaime remarked, a smirk on his face that he was surprised to see mirrored on her face as she stared up at him. 

“I may be of the North, dear Jaime, but I am a woman. We are well versed in mind games, and I will do what is necessary to protect my family when we arrive in that rat’s nest you call a capitol, even if it means stooping so low as to befriending the prince.”

“My, my, I may make a lioness of you yet, my lady.” Caryssa rolled her eyes at her future groom, but smiled at his comment nonetheless, no matter how false it may be. She was not a lioness, she was a she-wolf, and, no matter how much exposure she got to the Lannisters, nothing would take the ice from her veins.

Instead of voicing this, Caryssa leaned up and pressed her lips to Jaime’s cheek, before walking inside her tent, leaving him both pleased and confused at her action.

“Goodnight, Ser Jaime.” Her voice floated back, and he smiled, not knowing that his sister watched from a window above, a scowl marring her beautiful face. 

Cersei had not thought the Stark girl would warm up to her brother, she thought that the very idea repulsed her, but she had kissed him. On the cheek, but, even from a window view, Cersei had seen the affection with which the Stark kissed him. 

This did not please the Queen. Not one bit.

~*~


	10. The Rat's Nest

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "You can sacrifice and not love.  
> But you cannot love and not sacrifice."
> 
> -Kris Vallotton

Caryssa could admit that there was a kind of beauty about the Red Keep; it was formidable and daunting, towering over the lower city, where the poor and unfortunate dwelled, but in its way it was a sight to behold. 

Caryssa rode in between her father and Jory, as the Northerners entered the Red Keep, riding until they reached the courtyard in front of the Tower of the Hand. She turned her eyes backward, checking up on her sisters from where they sat on a cart. Both of them had not wanted their view to be restricted as they entered, so sat with Septa Mordane in the open cart, rather than the closed off carriage. Both Arya and Sansa had a look of child-like wonder on their faces, which caused a grin to play on Caryssa’s lips.

Jory nudged Caryssa, forcing her to turn back around and pay attention to her surroundings, just as her father pulled his horse to a halt, with everybody else following suit.

Ned dismounted his horse, allowing a stable hand to take the stallion from him, and stepped forward as a servant walked quickly towards him, a slightly nervous smile on his face. The Northern party were a rather intimidating group, Caryssa mused, still atop her horse at Jory’s side.

“Welcome, Lord Stark. Grand Maester Pycelle has called a meeting of the Small Council. The honour of your presence is requested.” The man said, giving her father a half-bow.

Ned sighed, looking around his shoulder at Septa Mordane and his eldest. 

“Get the girls settled in. I’ll be back in time for supper. And, Jory, you go with them.”

“Yes, my Lord.” Jory accepted Lord Stark’s orders, and Caryssa smiled at him. Even if she felt as though she was capable of protecting herself, Caryssa felt much more at ease knowing that Jory was going to be close by. Knowing him all her life, there was no man outside of her family, except Ser Rodrick, Maester Luwin and perhaps Ser Jaime, that she trusted more with her safety.

“If you’d like to change into something more appropriate…” The servant remarked, though quickly turned on his heels as Ned gave him a dark look, and simply removed his gloves. His wife had made him the leather tunic he was wearing, and he quite liked it.

Caryssa watched her father stride away, a quirk on her lips. She didn’t suppose he had expected to be called to duty so soon after arriving, yet he made no complaints. Her father was nothing if not a man of duty.

She turned to Jory, the same smile still firmly in place.

“Come, let’s get the children settled and our rooms ready for when the Hand of the King arrives to be fed.” Caryssa grinned, and Jory laughed at her, both of them dismounting from their snow white horses together. 

~*~

The rift had not healed between the youngest Stark girls. Arya was upset and angry at the loss of her direwolf; upset that Nymeria was gone, and angry that Sansa had not stood up for her and Nymeria. Sansa was upset because she had almost lost Lady, and that Lady and Rhaenyra had been forced into cages for the remainder of their journey.

It made things rather unpleasant once Caryssa and Septa Mordane had organized their new household and had gotten supper ready for the girls. They sat side by side, but in frosty silence. The only sound that was heard was Arya stabbing her knife into the table, which was beginning to irk both her septa and her sister. 

“Enough of that, young lady. Eat your food.” Septa Mordane scolded.

“I’m practicing.” Arya grumbled, continuing her actions, and Caryssa narrowed her eyes at her from across the table. 

“Practicing for what?” Sansa questioned, trying her best to ignore her sister’s hostility and eat her meal.

“The prince.” Arya answered simply, as though there was nothing wrong with her words, even if all of the other three at the table gasped in surprise.

Caryssa though had more than enough of her sister’s attitude, rising from her seat, moving around the table and yanking the knife out of Arya’s hand. Arya scowled at her eldest sister, and tried to reach for the knife, but Caryssa moved it out of her reach and handed it to the septa. 

“That is enough, Arya.” Caryssa warned her, but her sister refused to listen.

“He’s a liar and a coward and he killed my friend.” 

“The Hound killed your friend.” Sansa reminded her, and Arya narrowed her eyes at her sister, glaring at her as though she was the most naïve and stupid person alive.

“The Hound does whatever the prince tells him to do.”

“Yes, and what do you think the Hound would do to you if word gets back to the prince that you’ve been practicing to kill him?” Caryssa questioned, kneeling down beside her sister, gripping her chin and forcing Arya to look at her. “This place isn’t the North, these people aren’t Northerners. This place is full of corruption at every turn and spies listening to every conversation. You cannot say such things, not even here. Do you understand me?”

“He’s a liar and so is Sansa! If she had just told the truth, then Mycah would still be alive!” Arya said, slamming her little fist against the table and Caryssa squeezed her eyes closed, taking a deep breath. 

“Septa…take Arya to her room. She’s finished with her meal.” Caryssa sighed, standing to her full height. 

The septa nodded, gently pulling Arya out of her seat, and leading her away, just as Lord Stark returned from his council meeting. Caryssa noticed that her father looked more worn from the meeting than the long ride they had endured, and wondered how well it went.

“What is happening here?” He demanded, and before Caryssa could open her mouth to explain, Septa Mordane beat her to it.

“Arya would rather act like a beast than a lady. Caryssa has ordered her to her room.” 

Arya looked at her father, who looked between her and his eldest, who bore an expression of weariness. Ned turned back to his youngest, and gestured with his head for her to follow her sister’s instructions. 

“Go on. Go to your room. We’ll speak later,” Ned ordered her, and Arya sighed before finally doing as she was told. Ned turned to his eldest, who had collapsed into Arya’s vacant seat, running her fingers over the tiny prick marks the young girl had made in the wood with her knife. “What was that all about?”

“Arya is still angry over Mycah and Nymeria. She was saying things she shouldn’t and stabbing the table with her knife. She just needs some time before she’ll listen to reason,” Caryssa explained, waving her arm around as if she were batting away the problem. She pulled on a smile for her father, looking up at him from her seat, and arched an eyebrow, as she gripped the arms of the chair. “How did you fare in the Small Council, father?”

“We can talk more on that later,” Ned said, his daughter giving him a knowing smile. Sometimes he worried that his daughter could read his every thought, but he knew it was more that she knew him so well that she could interpret every shift and change in his body language and work out for herself the answers to most of her questions. He held up the package in his hand, and gently place it on the table beside Sansa. “That’s for you, love.”

The Tully-haired girl daintily placed down her knife and fork, before picking up the leather wrapped package as carefully as her father had placed it down. Caryssa gave her father a curious glance, and his lips quirked a moment before he turned back to Sansa, sitting down in the last vacant seat at the table.

Sansa tugged on the ties and unwrapped the leather to reveal a pretty doll dressed in blue and pink clothing. Caryssa moved her chair slightly so she had a better view of both the present and Sansa’s face. She didn’t look too impressed with it, but one glance at Caryssa had her plastering on a smile for her father. 

“The same dollmaker makes all of Princess Myrcella’s toys,” Ned informed her, and Sansa kept her smile, even if her and her sister both knew she hadn’t played with dolls since she was eight years old. “Do you like it?”

“It’s…it’s beautiful, father. Thank you,” Sansa lied, and while Caryssa had always been a strong advocate for the truth, they both knew a little white lie was better in this case, so Sansa didn’t hurt their lord father’s feelings. “May I be excused?”

“Well, you’ve barely eaten a thing.” Septa Mordane protested, but Ned shook his head.

“It’s all right. Go on.” 

Sansa gave her father another smile, taking the doll with her as she left the table. Ned waited until Sansa was out of earshot before he sighed deeply and turned to Septa Mordane. 

“War was easier than daughters.” He commented, and Caryssa quirked a brow at him.

“You flatter me, father.” Caryssa remarked, making her father chuckle. She always felt a little proud when she managed to make her father smile or laugh. Ned Stark was like the North, a grim beauty, fair but harsh. He was a very reserved man, her father, so any laugh or smile brought out of him was a victory. 

“You have always been the one child I had no worries about,” Ned informed her, and she beamed at him, only for him to laugh and continue. “And you repaid me by becoming a woman and giving me grey hairs. You were this charming little girl one moment and a beautiful young woman the next. Near gave me a heart attack.”

“It can’t have been that much of a surprise to you. Children have to grow sometime.” Caryssa replied softly, her eyes warm as she gazed at her father. He was looking worn, tired, like all the battles and trials he had fought in life were suddenly all catching up to him. He was still very handsome as he had been in his youth, when she was a child, but time was working its magic on him, that she could see quite clearly. 

“When you have children, you’ll understand. Your first born is different to the rest. While you want them to grow and become the people they were born to be, you want them to stay children forever, to stay yours forever.” Ned sighed, his gaze soft as he looked over at his daughter. 

She was so wise, so much more mature than her nineteen years would have her be, and so beautiful, so like his sister, that sometimes it hurt to look at her, yet he didn’t want her to leave him. Caryssa was his first born, his eldest daughter, the first of six precious gifts his wife have given him, and soon she wouldn’t be his, she’d be Jaime Lannister’s. He knew that it had to happen, but he didn’t like it much. 

Caryssa rose from her seat, circled around the table, and wrapped her arms around her father’s shoulders, and he immediately moved to hold them, rubbing his thumb over the material of her sleeves. He noticed that she had changed from her riding garb into one of the dresses her mother had given her so she would blend in better with the southern styles in the capitol. Plus, it was a creamy yellow, not bold enough for it to be obvious, but it was a nod to the King and his family, and Ned knew it was a deliberate move on Caryssa’s behalf. 

Ned knew his daughter was clever, far cleverer than most would believe, and she had a keen mind for politics even if she pretended she didn’t. She knew that by currying favor with the King and the prince, she could better keep their family in a better standing, but he didn’t want her to have to do that. He just hoped that she didn’t end up like the Cersei Lannister’s of the world, manipulating men into doing what they want, gaining power through dishonesty and other unsavory tactics. 

“I am a Stark of Winterfell, the She-Wolf of the North, and your daughter, first, last and always. Jaime Lannister, the King, the Queen and all the gods, old and new, couldn’t change that.” Caryssa declared, pressing a soft kiss to his cheek, resting her head against his for a couple moments, before straightening up and heading to the door that led to her bedroom. 

“Where are you going?” Ned questioned her, stopping her in her tracks. 

“I was told the gardens were beautiful. I thought I’d get Rhaenyra and take her for a walk there. She’s been rather unhappy being cooped up inside.” Caryssa answered honestly, though she was just as unhappy being confined within the tower’s walls. 

In Winterfell, she could roam anywhere and everywhere she wished, but here, in the Red Keep, she dare not go far beyond the Tower of the Hand. While she knew that Jaime, at the very least, would not cause any harm to come to her, not directly, she could not shake away the hate she felt rolling of the Lannister queen in waves. She was in Cersei’s world now, and she had to tread carefully or else find herself imprisoned or worse.

“Go on then, don’t forget to leash her. I don’t want any more trouble with these wolves.” 

“There won’t be, Father. Don’t fret,” Caryssa replied, smiling, before she walked into her rooms, having to push the excited direwolf puppy down off of her as she did so. She smiled at the affectionate, larger by the day, pup before grabbing her leather leash. “I know you don’t like it, but the King has ordered it, so we have to accept it, okay?”

Caryssa chuckled as Rhaenyra seemed to nod her head as if conceding to her wishes, before allowing her owner to slip the leash over her head and pull it tight. Caryssa and Rhaenyra walked back through the rooms, and out of the tower, trying to remember the directions one of their new staff had given her to the gardens. 

She found them soon enough, and Caryssa was almost overwhelmed. There were so many bright and colorful flowers, something she was not used to seeing in the cold, unforgiving North, and it felt like it was too much on her eyes all at once. So the Northern lady hurried past the pretty flowers, deciding to slow herself through the tall, green bushes, until she came to a fountain in the middle of it. There was nothing in the middle of it, like it was awaiting a statue of some sort to be built there, but no one had decided on what yet. 

It was incomplete. Very much how Caryssa felt within herself. Throughout their journey, and for most of her day so far, she had managed to preoccupy herself. Yet now, she was perched on the edge of the fountain, running her hands through Rhaenyra’s fur, and her mind wandered of its own accord to Winterfell and its inhabitants. 

She wondered if Bran was awake yet, if he had recovered from his fall. She knew that he would never have use of his legs again, that his dreams of being a knight were lost to him, but he was alive. That was a miracle in itself. 

She thought on her smallest pup, little Rickon, and how well he was taking their separation. He was probably sticking to poor Robb, hanging off his leg and insisting on following him wherever he went. Caryssa probably could have mothered him less, treated him more like her baby brother than her surrogate son, but she had done it with all her siblings. She mothered them all. It was just in her nature. Maybe it would turn out to be a bad thing. Without her pseudo-motherly support, and her mother still despairing over Bran, how would Rickon fair without someone to coddle him?

Next, her mind moved onto Robb. Robb. Her heart ached from the very thought of him. He had become the Lord of Winterfell now, in all but name. It was a responsibility that she was not sure he was ready for. He was just past his seventeenth year, and still very young. It was a heavy burden, the protection of the north, to place upon his shoulders, but she also knew that he would do his very best to honor their family, and his promise to her. She missed him terribly. When she first saw the table they would have their meals at, she had almost wept at the pitiful size of it. Of course, they had given them that table since only three, plus Septa Mordane, would truly be eating at it once Caryssa was married, but it had only served as a reminder that she was missing half of her pack. 

Feeling a wet, scratchy tongue lapping at her cheeks, she focused on where she was, and realized that she was weeping quietly. Rhaenyra was whining, licking away her human’s tears, and Caryssa bit the inside of her cheek, trying to push back at the wave of emotions that was threatening to wash her walls away. She buried her face in Rhaenyra’s grey-white fur, hugging the direwolf tight to her.

“I’ve never really known what to do when a woman starts crying. It appears your wolf is better versed in that respect than I.” 

Caryssa jumped to her feet, grabbing tight on Rhaenyra’s leash when she started to growl lowly at the man in front of her. With her free hand, she started furiously scrubbing her cheeks free of tears, before glaring at the unknown man in front of her. 

“I don’t believe I’ve made your acquaintance.” Caryssa said sharply, her eyes showing a clear distrust. Rhaenyra, like her owner, seemed to sense when a man was worthy of trust or not. She had not growled at either Tyrion or Ser Jaime, at her brothers or father, at Jory and Ser Roderick or at the King. The people the direwolf had growled at where Theon, the prince and the hound, Ser Ilyn Payne, several Lannister soldiers, the King’s squire (Another Lannister. Lancel, was his name.), Cersei, and now this man. 

“I am a friend of your mother’s, from when we were children together, maybe she’s mentioned me. Lord Petyr Baelish. I am a member of the Small Council.” 

Caryssa eyed the man, taking in his goatee, his slim build, noting that he could not have been a warrior like her father and uncle had been, and his eyes. It were his eyes that made her distrust him. They screamed mischief and deceit to her, and the slight superior smirk on his lips only added to that image. She imagined he would have quite the silver tongue as well.

When Caryssa did not reply, Lord Baelish simply continued to talk, noting her narrowed us and the way she loosened her grip on the still growling direwolf’s leash as he took a couple steps back. He could see the sword at her hip, one that he was sure her mother would be less than pleased about her carrying, and the casual way her hand rested on top of the hilt. She did not trust him, not even after the mention of his previous friendship with her lady mother. 

“I heard you may be in the gardens, and I thought you might like a tour of the grounds. I did not expect, from all the stories I have heard of the illustrious Lady of the North, to find you weeping. What gives you cause to weep, my lady? Do you not like your new home?”

“It is too early for me to have formed an opinion, my lord.” Caryssa replied simply, being vague in her answer on purpose. He may know of her, but she knew not of him. Her mother had made no mention of him in all of her life, so she could not know if he told the truth or not. She would ask her father when she returned to the tower. 

“Perhaps it is due to your upcoming wedding. Are you worried about marrying the Kingslayer, Lady Caryssa?” Baelish questioned, but before Caryssa could answer, a voice spoke for her.

“I believe it’s I who should be worried. Some of the stories you hear on the road about the She-Wolf of the North are quite terrifying, I must say.” Jaime grinned at her as he stepped into view from behind one of the bushes, seeing her breathe a sigh of relief, though she did not realize it herself. 

“Ah, the man himself. I’ll leave your future bride in your capable hands, Lannister.” Baelish spoke through gritted teeth, and both Jaime and Caryssa knew that he was leaving rather reluctantly. After all, he had practically hunted her down with the intention of ‘showing her around the keep’. Caryssa did not know his game, but she would work to understand this stranger, to work out his motivations. 

Caryssa did not speak, and Rhaenyra did not stop growling until the man had gone, and only then did both woman and direwolf relax. 

“He said his name was Petyr Baelish, that he knew my mother. Was that true?” Caryssa questioned, her eyes still on the break in the bushes where the man had disappeared to. He had sent unpleasant shivers down her spine, the same kind Theon Greyjoy had always given her. It was how she knew the Iron Islander was not to be trusted, so she never did.

Jaime nodded, confirming Baelish’s story, and Caryssa turned her eyes to him.

“I spent some time in the Riverlands when I was a boy. Littlefinger was very much in love with your mother, even going so far as to challenge your uncle, Brandon, to a duel for her hand.” Jaime revealed, as he stepped closer to her, a smirk on his face as the grey-white wolf did not growl at him, and at how his bride to be did not tense at his approach the way she had Baelish’s. 

“I sometimes forget that Uncle Brandon was betrothed to my mother first,” Caryssa mused, before amusement sparkled in her eyes. “My uncle would not have taken kindly to the challenge that much I remember of him. He was rash where my father was more calculated. Uncle Brandon obviously won that battle. Baelish strikes me as a man who fights with words and plots, not a sword. Can I trust him?”

“It wouldn’t be in your best interest, little wife. Baelish is ambitious, and would most likely say anything and do anything to further himself. His is a quest for power,” Jaime informed her, and she nodded, storing that information within her mind, ready for later use. Caryssa looked up at the white-gold clad knight, seeing him already staring down at her. She wondered what was going through his mind, when he suddenly reached up, cupping her cheek with his hand. Her eyes widened, until he rubbed his thumb under her eye, wiping away the dampness she had missed. “I did not know that ice maidens could cry.”

Caryssa scoffed, trying to muster up enough anger to retort with, but she couldn’t. Instead she chuckled in spite of herself, in spite of the man before her. She found herself warming to him, and she was both terrified and thankful of it. Terrified because he was an unsafe bet to make, a man with his reputation was a dangerous one to entrust yourself and, more importantly, your heart with, and thankful because she could not imagine a marriage without trust and some form of affection. 

She knew that her parents’ marriage had not started out on the best of terms. Her uncle Brandon had married some other woman, a farmer’s daughter, which had almost put the Starks and Tullys at odds. Her uncle had left Hoster Tully’s eldest daughter without a husband, and him without an alliance to the North, that is until her father had asked the Warden of the Riverlands for his daughter’s hand, to reestablish that alliance and smooth things over after the mess his eldest brother had made. Her mother had loved Brandon, and she knew her father had loved some other woman, she had guessed as much from his story, but they grew to love each other immensely and wholly. She wished for a love like the one her parents had.

“I suppose even the ice maiden melts when exposed to this ridiculous southern heat.” Caryssa remarked, her dry tone not going by unnoticed.

“The weather here is not to your liking? How shocking,” Jaime teased her, and she rolled her eyes at him, before she really took him in. She had seen his Kingsguard armor all but once, and that was only for a brief few minutes back in Winterfell from a distance. She was seeing it up close now, and had to admit that it was an attractive look on him. Jaime must have caught where her eyes had wandered to, because when she glanced back up at his eyes, he was smirking again. “See something you like? We’re to be man and wife, you are more than welcome to ogle me as much as you’d like, as long as I can return the favor.”

“How gallant of you, but, as tempting as that offer sounds, I would have to pass. As you seem to have been relieved of your duty, you can escort me around the rest of the gardens.”

Now it was her turn to smirk, as she held her hand out to him, waiting for him to take her arm and do just as she’d said. He eyed her, seeing if she was being serious or not. His future bride had yet to express a real desire to spend any time with him. Perhaps the ridiculous southern heat, as she had so eloquently put it, had meddled with her mind. Yet she seemed genuine enough. She could be trying to make the transition from perfect strangers to man and wife easier on them both by tearing down a few walls to let him in. 

Regardless of her reasons, he looped her right arm through his left, keeping a gentle grip on her hand, before leading her away. 

“I had an interesting conversation with your father earlier today.” He quipped, as they walked through the gardens, neither realizing that they were in tandem with each other. Right foot first, followed by the left.

“Oh yes? He did not say.”

“It was in the throne room. I was on guard, and may have provoked him a little, but he was quick to retaliate. We spoke of the deaths of your uncle and grandfather. I don’t know if you met them.”

“I was but a small child, barely two, but I remember them. I remember crying when father told me what the Mad King had done, when he told me that they would not be returning home. I did not know them very well, not like my uncle Benjen, but all I knew was that my father was saddened by it, so I cried for him, for his loss.” Caryssa divulged to him, trying to let him in, little by little. She knew she had resisted at first, she had not wanted to leave Winterfell, but she was in King’s Landing now and there was nothing to be done about stopping this marriage, so she would make the best of it. The way her mother would expect her to.

“I cannot imagine what that is like.” Jaime replied, and Caryssa looked at him in confusion.

“What do you mean?”

“I love my family dearly, I do, but I have never cried for them, for their losses.” Jaime revealed, and Caryssa squeezed his hand, gazing up at him. 

“I’ve been told that I can be overly compassionate when it comes to my family. I remember when Robb first started to walk, we were in the Great Hall in Winterfell, and father had finally come home from the war with Jon in tow. Jon could already toddle, but Robb was like a newborn doe on his feet, all shaky and unsure. He tried all the same though, because he wanted to follow me everywhere. One day, he climbed to his feet as I was walking away, following my septa to my room, and tried to follow, but I was walking too quickly and he fell. I rushed back to him and saw that he had cut his knee,” Caryssa chuckled at the memory, and Jaime gazed at her, in wonder. She was revealing all these private memories of her family, information she usually kept close to her chest, and he had no real idea why, but he dared not question her, in case she decided to stop. It was not a terrible thing, he decided, to get to know his little wife. “The boy didn’t even cry. I saw the blood, thought he must be in such pain, and cried for him. My father rushed into the room, thinking something terrible had happened, and it took forever for him to calm me down, insisting that Robb wasn’t really hurt. I’ve always felt my family’s pain more than my own. Perhaps that speaks more about my character than it should.”

Caryssa smiled, not realizing that they had come to a stop at a balcony overlooking more of the keep below, and she looked up at him, surprised to find him already gazing down at her, with a warmth in his eyes that she hadn’t expected to see.

“What?” She questioned, and he simply chucked in return.

“You are a puzzle, Lady Stark, and sometimes, I really cannot fathom you.”

“But isn’t that part of the fun?” Caryssa asked, and Jaime looked at her in confusion. Fun? What was she talking about? “If I was easy to understand and completely uncomplicated, you would tire of my company in an instant, and if you were the same, I would be bored of you also. Puzzles are fun, because trying to solve them is almost as fun as the actual solving.”

Jaime snorted, causing his female companion’s eyebrows to pinch together as she tried to understand why he could possibly be laughing at her, or at the audacity of him laughing at her in the first place. It was rather rude to laugh at a lady when she had not embarrassed herself, or even when she had. 

“I see why Tyrion liked you so much now. You both have a fondness for games of the mind.” Jaime chuckled, and Caryssa rolled her eyes at him. She feared her eyes would eventually ache from the amount of time she spent rolling them at him. 

“Tyrion has a wonderful brain and wit. Of course he liked me.” Caryssa teased, letting her own ego show for a moment. 

She knew she had one, but she rarely liked to acknowledge it or let it dictate her actions. She knew that she was beautiful, which often inflated it, and she knew that her intellect was nothing to scoff at either, like her skills with a bow. What made her ego controllable was the knowledge that there were people in the world, she knew, that were more beautiful, more intelligent and better skilled in her weapon of choice than she was. She recognized this, even if others like to exaggerate her attributes. 

“Of course, how stupid of me. He wrote to me, Tyrion, and asked me to tell you that your brother, the bastard, was doing well on the Wall, despite it not being what he thought it would be.”

“Jon would do well in anything. I raised him,” Caryssa stressed her brother’s name, making Jaime roll his eyes, but he stopped when concern flickered in her eyes and worry transformed her face. “Did Tyrion say if he was fitting in well with the other men? He’s only ever had Robb, Theon, Sansa, Arya, Bran, Rickon and I. I’m worried that the rapers and thieves and murderers will treat him badly being the son of Ned Stark.”

“You truly care for him, don’t you? You bear him no ill will despite the circumstances of his birth?” Jaime questioned, and Caryssa blinked at him in surprise.

“Why would I? Jon had no say in his birth, nor his parentage, but I had a say in whether to love him or not, so I did. I love him as I do all my family, full blood or not. He’s a Stark, even if he doesn’t have our name. Though he would if I had my say.”

“You’d have him legitimized? Why?”

“He’s a Stark, through and through. He looks like my father, like my uncles, and no matter who his mother may be, it is the North that runs through his veins. He is a wolf of Winterfell and he should be known as such.”

“Too late now, the boy will be a crow.” Jaime replied, and Caryssa sighed. She had not wanted for Jon to become a man of the Watch. She had been sorely against it from the first moment he had mentioned it at the age of eight. It bothered her immensely that her mother almost seemed to encourage him to choose that path. Caryssa knew that Jon had almost created a fantasy as to what the Wall was like, and she knew that he would be facing a harsh reality now. She had warned him against it. She had truly tried, but in the end, she knew that his happiness, his fate, were entirely up to him to achieve, so she had plastered on a smile and gave him her best wishes.

She would pray to the old gods and new that he would remain safe on the Wall until the day, whenever that was, they next saw each other again.

The she-wolf shook her head, willing away the dark thoughts that threatened to ruin her good mood, and turned to her companion, her betrothed, and smiled.

“Ser Jaime, tell me about Casterly Rock. I’ve heard it is beautiful.”

~*~

Jon Snow was depressed. The Wall was not what he thought it would be. He had been there nearly two weeks now, and he’d already made himself more than a couple enemies when he should have been making friends, brothers to replace the ones he had left behind. 

Not that any man could replace his brothers. The Starks were a hard bunch to shake off once they dug their claws into you. 

The bastard placed another blunt training sword into its holder, ignoring the two other recruits in the room with him. They’d been glaring at him since he walked in, watching every move he made. He remained as silent as Ghost, not wishing to provoke them further, until he heard the door open and close behind him. 

“You broke my nose, bastard.” A voice growled, and Jon froze for a moment, before putting down another training sword, and turning to face the man. 

Jon noticed that he still had fresh blood staining his face, and he smirked, in spite of himself. He hadn’t wanted to cause problems for himself, but he couldn’t help the words that tumbled from his lips, reassured by his superior skills to the men surrounding him. 

“It’s an improvement.” Jon Snow remarked, enraging the bloodied man further. A man grabbed him from behind, holding him in place, while the angry man charged at him holding a rusty, most likely blunt, blade to his throat. 

“If we threw you over the Wall, I wonder how long it would take you to hit.” He sneered, another man, smaller and leaner, moving closer so he could also taunt the trapped lord’s son. 

“I wonder if they’d find you before the wolves did.”

The door creaked open, and all four men’s eyes turned towards the newcomer, expecting it to be someone who’d flog them for fighting amongst themselves, only to find Tyrion Lannister, the half-man, the Imp, standing in the open doorway. 

“What are you looking at, half-man?” The recruit with the blade to Jon’s throat questioned, wanting to frighten the boy from Winterfell. The man wasn’t a killer, no, but he was angry, very much so, and wanted to scare the green boy who’d broken his nose, like it was as easy as a sharp knife through butter. 

“I’m looking at you,” The Lannister dwarf replied, dryly, and tauntingly. These men could most likely all best him in combat, but he had his own weapon, as his new, and only, female friend had pointed out to him. “Yes. You’ve got an interesting face. Hmm, very distinctive faces. All of you.”

“And what do you care about our faces?” The man holding the Snow boy asked, feeling a little bit nervous in the presence of the Imp. Not because of his physical stature, that was not threatening at all, but because of his social stature. He was a guest of the Lord Commander of the Watch, and if any harm came to him, it would be their heads. 

“It’s just,” Tyrion paused slightly, as he leaned against the nearest wall, and smirked at them. “I think they would look marvelous decorating spikes in King’s Landing. Perhaps I’ll write to my sister, the queen, about it. Or my brother, the Kingslayer. After all, it is his future good-brother you’re holding a knife to, and Lady Caryssa would be incredibly angry at me if I let any harm befall her brother.”

The three men looked at each other, before releasing Jon. Two of them remained, the small one and the angry one, while the other left, not wanting to be in the same room as the clever Lannister lion any longer. 

“We’ll talk later, Lord Snow.” The bloodied man whispered to him, before stepping off to the side to remove his training armor.

Jon panted slightly, leaning back against the heavy wooden sword holder, as he gazed at the half-man who’d saved his life with only his words. Perhaps Jon should read more, he mused to himself, if only to sharpen his wits. His sister read. Caryssa read as often as her schedule allowed her to, saying that a slow mind meant a quick death, but he and Robb had always scoffed at her. 

He wasn’t laughing now. He missed her. Missed all of his family. He wished he hadn’t left Winterfell now.

“Everybody knew what this place was and no one told me. No one but you and my sister. My father knew and he left me to rot at the Wall all the same.” Jon lamented. He knew his father loved him, deep down he knew that, but it stung to know that the only people who had cared to tell him that a life on the Wall was not what he thought it would be was his eldest sister, who he thought he had known better than, and the dwarf who stood before him.

“Grenn’s father left him too, outside a farmhouse, when he was three,” Tyrion informed him, both of them looking at the man in question as he stared at the Lannister dwarf, wondering how he knew that. “Pyp was caught stealing a wheel of cheese. His little sister hadn’t eaten in three days. He was given a choice – his right hand or the Wall. I’ve been asking the Lord Commander about them. Fascinating stories.”

“They hate me because I’m better than they are.” Jon seethed. He felt guilty, after having heard their stories, but he did not feel that it was their right to treat him as the outcast because of it.

“It’s a lucky thing none of them were trained by a master-at-arms like your Ser Rodrik. I don’t imagine any of them had ever held a real sword before they came here. I won’t write your sister about this mess, I’m sure she’d ride North in an instant to beat some sense into you,” Tyrion retorted, trying to get the bastard boy to see some sense himself. He was starting to believe that the Lady Caryssa’s intellect had been handed down to her from her mother’s side. Tyrion started to walk away, before he remembered the letter in his pocket. “Oh…Your brother Bran. He’s woken up.”

Jon snatched the offered paper wordlessly, only opening it once the dwarf was gone.

Bran was awake.

~*~

A double rap on her chamber door had the queen up in an instant, yanking the door open and closing it again as soon as her guest was through. She had heard the news about the Stark boy, and she was more than concerned. 

“How could you be so stupid?” Cersei almost growled, like the lioness she truly was. 

“Calm down.” The man opposite her instructed, and she glared at him for that. How dare he tell her to calm down? When all she had built was at stake because of him?

“He’s a child. Ten years old. What were you thinking?” Cersei questioned, her fingers fiddling with each other with her nerves. Bran Stark was awake, and, as far she knew, could not remember a thing of what he had seen. 

If he had, her and her lover, they’d both be dead by now, their heads displayed for all to see above the city gates. Everything would be lost to her. Her children, her power, her crown. All lost for a moment of passion with the man she loved. Passion, love, they were both their own killers, she was starting to see.

“I was thinking of us. I was thinking of you. I had to protect you. It’s a bit late to start complaining about it now, is it not? What has the boy told them?”

“Nothing. He said nothing. He remembers nothing.” Cersei informed him, resisting the urge to roll her eyes at the confusion on his face. If she knew one thing about men, is that it does not do well to damage their egos with a simple gesture such as a roll of the eyes. No matter how exasperating they may be.

“Then why are you worried? He doesn’t remember. Doesn’t that make us safe?” He asked, and Cersei almost sighed as she had to explain it to him. 

If it had been Jaime, she doubted he’d be this clueless, but they had finished their forbidden tryst a good six years ago. Cersei wondered what he’d say if he were in Lancel’s place. Probably something crude and mildly enraging, knowing her brother.

But he was not in Lancel’s place. He was with the Stark girl, and suddenly, Cersei saw red for a whole new reason.

“What if it comes back to him? If he tells his father what he saw.”

“We’ll tell them he was lying. We’ll say he was dreaming. We’ll say whatever we like. I’m sure that they would not take the word of a ten year old over that of the queen.” Lancel answered, trying to be reassuring.

“And my husband?”

“I’ll kill him if I have to. Anything for you. You know that.”

His words sounded sincere, and it only served to spark an idea in Cersei’s mind. Anything for her? She would have to see about that.


	11. When Innocence Was Lost

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "All the powers in the universe are already ours.  
> It is we who have put our hands before our eyes and cry that it is dark."
> 
> -Swami Vivekananda

Caryssa was waiting in the throne room for her father after another meeting of the Small Council. She had spent a large portion of her first day in King’s Landing with her betrothed and she realized that he was not as terrible as the rumor mill would have her believe, though she did not dare tell him that. He seemed to enjoy the benefits that came with his reputation as a man without honor, though she knew that it bothered him when it was thrown back into his face. Jaime Lannister had surprised her, asking her many questions about herself, and genuinely seeming to care about her answers. It did occur to her that he was simply pretending, but to make her life easier for her, she would pretend to believe him.

That morning had been a particularly difficult one for her. She had been swept out of her bed by Septa Mordane, Sansa and, most surprising of all, the Queen and her handmaidens for a fitting for her wedding gown. Cersei had given a lot of input, claiming that the bride of the great Jaime Lannister had to look the part. Caryssa had stayed mostly mute throughout the whole process, only nodding or humming her agreement with the Queen or Sansa. Her mind was with her mother, wishing that she was there to help her. How could she even marry without her mother’s guiding hand there to aide her in everything? Her mother would not be attending her wedding, being in Winterfell, and that made her heartache immensely.

Yet, when she saw her father striding towards her, she smiled widely at the sight of him, refusing to burden him with her own problems when he looked tired from his meeting. 

She stretched out a hand, and her father accepted it, pressing a fatherly kiss to it, before looping her arm through his, glad to see her done with her fitting and to be done with those men who had been badgering him all morning long. 

Just as Caryssa was about to open her mouth to ask him how his meeting had gone, a voice stopped them in their tracks. 

“Lord Stark,” An old, raspy voice called, and both Starks turned round. An old man shuffled towards them, wheezing slightly, and Caryssa kept a polite smile on her face as he stopped before them, a leer in his eyes for her. “Is this…your daughter? A true beauty, just like they say.”

“Is there something you wanted, Grand Maester?” Ned reminded, wanting to get his unsavory gaze away from his daughter. 

“Oh, yes!” The old man remembered, holding up a rolled up letter in his hand. “I meant…to give this to you earlier. So forgetful these days. A raven from Winterfell this morning.”

Caryssa watched her father take the small parchment from Pycelle, nodding at the old man to dismiss him, and then, instead of reading the letter with her father like she wanted, she watched the approach of Littlefinger. 

“Good news?” He drawled, as he strode towards them, smiling at Caryssa, making her shiver unpleasantly as he did yesterday. Neither Stark answered him, but it did not deter him. “It’s lovely to see you again, Lady Caryssa. Perhaps you’d like to share your news with your mother.”

“She is in Winterfell, Lord Baelish.” Caryssa replied, attempting to be polite in front of her father, even though she wanted to be far away from him. 

“Is she?” Baelish smirked, and both Ned and Caryssa watched him as he walked away, before following the man, understanding the hidden message in his words and his expression.

Catelyn Stark was here in King’s Landing, and Lord Baelish knew where.

Without asking any questions for fear of who would overhear, they saddled their horses and followed the Master of Coin deeper into the city, until they stopped outside of a pleasure house. Caryssa was less than impressed as she dismounted, keeping step with her father, who looked even less pleased than she did. 

“I thought that she’d be safest in here. One of several such establishments I own.” Littlefinger informed them, Caryssa wrinkling her nose in disgust as a man left the building with rumpled clothes and an all too happy grin spread across his lips. 

Ned, displeased by what he thought was a game of Littlefinger’s concocting, grabbed the man by the neck and held him by the throat against a wall, much to his surprise. 

“You’re a funny man,” Caryssa watched him grip the man’s throat a little tighter as he struggled. “Huh? A very funny man.”

“Ned!” 

Hearing her mother’s voice, Caryssa rushed inside with as much dignity as she could manage when entering a whorehouse, climbing a flight of steps, just ahead of her father. As soon as she caught sight of her mother, she almost completely forgot herself and bounded into her mother’s arms. 

“Mother!” Caryssa sighed happily, feeling safe again. Of course, she felt safe with her father, or Jory, or even Jaime, but there was something about a mother’s embrace that just took all life’s worries away. Caryssa and Catelyn gripped each other tight, only letting each other go, so her father and mother could embrace. So overjoyed was she to see her mother again, that it almost slipped her mind that she was supposed to be in Winterfell. “Mother, what are you doing here?”

Her mother sobered up then, releasing her father, but not his hands. Her mother grasped his hand tightly as she looked him in the eye. 

“There was an attempt on Bran’s life. An assassin created a diversion by setting a fire just away from his room, and then crept in intending to take his life, but I held him off as best I could, until his direwolf finished the job,” Her mother explained, her eyes flickering to her daughter who had a hand clasped tightly over her throat. Her brother’s life was threatened, again, and she had not even known about it. Then she saw the bandages around her mother’s hands. Caryssa stepped forward and tugged one away from her father, running a finger across the tight cloth. “He cut my hands with the same knife he was going to kill Bran with. Petyr told us that it was his knife until he lost it in a bet against Tyrion Lannister.”

Caryssa turned her blue eyes onto Littlefinger, who kept up a stoic expression as he locked eyes with her. She did not trust him, but she did trust Tyrion, even if it was a tenuous trust, forged from their shared hobbies and her brother’s crippling. She did not believe that Tyrion could have ordered her brother’s murder. He was far too clever to leave a trail that would lead back to him, even if he had. Someone was implicating him, and she knew it was Littlefinger, though she did not know why.

“The mere suggestion that the queen’s brother tried to kill your boy would be considered treason.” Baelish stated, and her mother and father finally turned to face him, bringing him into their conversation. 

“But we have proof. We have the blade.”

“Which Lord Tyrion will say was stolen from him. The only man who could say otherwise has no throat, thanks to your boy’s wolf.” Baelish replied, and Caryssa stared at him coolly.

“How did you lose this blade to Lord Tyrion? It’s hard to imagine a man with a mind like yours could place a bad bet.” Caryssa questioned, using a backhanded compliment to try and earn herself the truth.

“As I told your mother, I bet on Jaime Lannister in the tourney held in honor of Prince Joffrey’s last namesday. I believed it was a safe bet, Ser Jaime is the best in the Seven Kingdoms, only he was unseated by Lord Loras Tyrell of Highgarden. I lost the dagger to Lord Tyrion, a man with better luck than I, it would seem.”

Caryssa found it hard to believe that Tyrion, knowing how skilled his brother was, better than most people, would bet against him. The Lannisters could be dishonorable, but not to their own. She was beginning to question exactly what Littlefinger’s motives were.

“Caryssa, Petyr has promised to help us find the truth,” Her mother insisted, and Caryssa nodded, though she did not believe that the truth is what ‘Petyr’ would help them find. Early graves, Caryssa thought, that’s what he wishes us to find, except maybe mother. Her mother turned to her father, and pleaded with him to trust her friend. “He’s like a little brother to me, Ned. He would never betray my trust.”

“I’ll try to keep you alive, Lord Stark, for her sake. A fool’s task, admittedly, but I’ve never been able to refuse your wife anything.” Baelish declared, but Caryssa did not like his tone. Jaime was right. He was still very much in love with her mother, and that was something that Caryssa did not like. Love was a powerful motivator, and it could drive even the most rational of people to perform the most horrendous of tasks. 

“I won’t forget this. You’re a true friend.” Her mother stated, her blue eyes wide and trusting as she looked at Littlefinger, while her daughter’s were the opposite. 

“Don’t tell anyone. I have a reputation to maintain.”

~*~

Caryssa was torn the next day. The king had summoned her to visit him in his solar, but she wanted to see her mother off, bid her farewell because she knew not when they would meet next. She debated with herself for quite a while that morning, but she knew a direct order to the king could not be ignored. 

So she dressed herself in a blue gown, Tully blue for her mother, though she would not see it, slipped on a pair of silver shoes and strapped her knife to her leg, before placing all of her jewelry where it belonged; her brooch just under the bust of her dress, her necklace settling in the dip between her breasts, and her direwolf ring on the middle finger of her right hand. Once braiding her hair back, pulling it into an intricate bun, she left her rooms to start her day.

Caryssa could not stomach food that morning so did not break fast with her sisters, though she made sure that they had eaten well, and that the two direwolves were taken out by Jory, before she left to meet with the king. 

She had almost gotten lost, the keep was very large and there were so many unfamiliar hallways and doors that had her completely turned about until she found a servant happy enough to help her find her way. The girl, no more than six and ten, nattered on the entire way, about the goings on in the keep, about how excited the castle was for the wedding and the tourney for the Hand of the King that would come after. 

Caryssa nodded or gave polite, short answers whenever the girl aimed a question to her, until they finally reached their destination and she came face to face with her betrothed. She took a moment to thank the servant girl, dismissing her, and then to shamelessly (almost shamelessly, her propriety got the better of her eventually) ogle her intended, before approaching him and the door he guarded.

“Miss me already, little wife?” He teased her, and she gave him an indulgent smile, before answering.

“We are not married yet, Ser Jaime, and I am not here to see you, my white knight. The king requested my presence,” Caryssa replied, and Jaime nodded, suddenly serious, more serious than she had ever seen him, and quickly opened the door for her. “Thank you.”

Jaime nodded at her once, a small smile on his lips, before he closed the door behind her, and she stepped a little further into the room, waiting to be told by King Robert what he had wanted her for.

“There you are, girl! Come sit down, have a glass of wine! Ser Barristan and I were talking about first kills!”

She did as the king instructed, taking the seat opposite his at his desk, and taking the glass offered to her by Robert’s squire, Lancel Lannister. She quietly spoke her thanks, taking a gulp of the sweet Dornish wine, far sweeter than she was used to, to calm her nerves. The king simply eyed her for a moment, before he continued his conversation. 

“Yes, it’s been a long time. But I still remember every face,” The king said, and Caryssa quirked her lips, wondering why the king had summoned her to his solar just to listen to his war stories. “Do you remember your first?”

Caryssa turned her head, looking back at Ser Barristan, as he stepped a few steps closer as he replied. 

“Of course, Your Grace.”

“Who was it?” The King pressed, and Caryssa had to admit, that she was curious about it herself. She had always loved her father’s stories, though he did not tell the particularly gruesome ones; those came from Ser Rodrick when she begged him to tell her about his own battles and wars he had fought in. 

“A Tyroshi. Never learned the name.” Ser Barristan answered from a few steps behind her, and Caryssa turned back to face the king, not wanting to crane her neck around anymore. Though she did not know what was worse; the smell of wine and sweat that was rolling off the king in pungent waves or the neck ache she would receive looking at the Lord Commander of the Kingsguard. 

“Hmm. How did you do it?” The King questioned, his voice a little slurred from his intake of wine.

“Lance through the heart.”

“Quick one. Lucky for you. Mine was some Tarly boy at the Battle of Summerhall,” Her father had told her of that battle. She couldn’t remember what had happened as she had been so young, but she remembered the name. “My horse took an arrow so I was on foot, slogging through the mud. He came running at me, this dumb high-born lad, thinking he could end the rebellion with a single swing of his sword. I knocked him down with the hammer. Gods, I was strong then. Caved in his breastplate. Probably shattered every rib he had. Stood over him, hammer in the air. Right before I brought it down, he shouted, ‘Wait! Wait,’.”

The king laughed quietly, taking his eyes off the man behind Caryssa to turn them to her. 

“They never tell you how they all shit themselves. They don’t put that part in the songs. Stupid boy,” King Robert muttered, before speaking louder again, returning to the now instead of his memory. “Now the Tarlys bend the knee like everyone else. He could have lingered on the edge of the battle with the smart boys, and today his would be making him miserable, his son would be ingrates, and he’d be waking three times in the night to piss into a bowl. Wine!”

His squire seemed to hesitate a moment, before moving to pour him some wine. Caryssa winced as only a small amount trickled into the wine glass. The king would be displeased by that. 

“Lancel,” The king scoffed, as Lancel tried to shake a few more drops from the gold jug. “Gods, what a stupid name. Lancel Lannister. Who named you? Some halfwit with a stutter?”

“Perhaps, you should have him fetch some more wine, Your Grace, as your supply seems to have run dry.” Caryssa pointed out to him, trying to save the man some torment. The king was not a very kind drunk when it came to Lannisters it appeared.

“She’s right. Go get more wine,” The King ordered, and his squire obeyed, shooting her an almost grateful look as he departed. When he opened the door, Caryssa saw Jaime, his body half tilted towards the door, almost as he’d been listening. “Tell your cousin to get in here. Kingslayer! Get in here.”

Caryssa saw Jaime’s jaw clench and unclench, as he pulled back whatever sarcastic or angry quips he had and held them in, before he turned, skirting round Lancel, and moved into the room. Lancel closed the door behind him, all too eager to be free of the king’s torment. 

“Surrounded by Lannisters. Every time I close my eyes I see their blond hair and their smug, satisfied faces. It must wound your pride, huh?” The King questioned, taunting Jaime as Caryssa sat quietly, her cup of wine gripped tightly between her hands. “Standing out there like a glorified sentry. Jaime Lannister, son of the mighty Tywin, forced to mind the door while your king eats and drinks and shits and fucks.”

“Being a member of the Kingsguard is a high honor, I am told. Ensuring the safety of the king is a feat that only the most noble of men can undertake.” Caryssa defended, though King Robert laughed loudly at her words. 

“She’s already battling your side. You’re a lucky man, Lannister, that Ned Stark thought you fit to marry his daughter,” Jaime simply nodded, though he shot an odd look towards Caryssa, possibly wondering why she would stick up for him in the first place. “Come on. We’re telling war stories for the lady. Who was your first kill, not counting old men?”

“One of the outlaws of the brotherhood.” Jaime answered, and Ser Barristan looked at him.

“I was there that day. You were only a squire, 16 years old.”

“You killed Simon Toyne with a counter riposte. Best move I ever saw.” Jaime enthused, and Caryssa smiled at his enthusiasm, in spite of herself. He clearly respected his lord commander, as much as Ser Barristan seemed to respect him, regardless of his ‘Kingslayer’ status. It reminded her of how Jory spoke to her father sometimes.

“A good fighter, Toyne, but he lacked stamina.”

“Your outlaw...” King Robert trailed off, gaining back their attention, and Caryssa’s. “Any last words?”

“I cut his head off, so no.” Jaime replied, casually, and Caryssa’s smile fell. While she enjoyed war stories, she did not like to take death so casually. Death changes people. Killing someone, having blood on your hands, it stays with you, haunting your very dreams. Or rather, it should. 

“Hmm. What about Aerys Targaryen? What did the Mad King say when you stabbed him in the back? I never asked. Did he call you a traitor? Did he plead for a reprieve?” 

Caryssa froze stock still. The Mad King, she knew, was a touchy topic for her future husband, whether he would like to admit it or not. He would not say why he decided to stab him in the back after all that time and all that blood shed that could have been avoided, nor did he like to really be reminded of the event itself. Yet he was, almost daily. 

Jaime had been quiet, his eyes narrowed and his jaw taut just enough for Caryssa to know that he was unhappy with the line of questioning, until the King had finished asking his questions. A beat of silence came after that, before he replied.

“He said the same thing he’d been saying for hours. ‘Burn them all’,” Jaime revealed, and Caryssa did not know what to make of his words. Jaime saw the confusion in her wide, blue eyes, but did not say anymore. He had not even told his father the true reason he had killed Aerys Targaryen, he doubted very much that his little wife would be understanding enough to comprehend his reasoning behind it. After all, she was her father’s daughter. “If that’s all, Your Grace…”

“No, that’s not all, Lannister,” King Robert stopped him from leaving, his eyes turning to Caryssa. “We haven’t heard about Lady Stark’s first kill yet.”

Caryssa froze in her seat, cursing the drunken king in her mind for saying anything at all, and cursing her father for having told him her worst moment, her ever-present nightmare. Her jaw clenched and her knuckles turned white from the force with which she was gripped the wine cup in her hand. Fearing she might smash it, she placed it down onto his desk. 

“Come on, girl, tell us how it happened.”

“I think I would prefer to leave, Your Grace, with your permission.” Caryssa said, moving to stand, but the king barked at her to sit down, so she lowered herself reluctantly back into her seat. 

“You do not have my permission, now sit and tell us the story. How old were you?”

“Seven, Your Grace. It was my seventh namesday.” Caryssa bit out, hating that she had to sit there and relive the worst moment of her life in front of the king, the lord commander of his Kingsguard and her future husband. 

“Gods, your namesday? How did it happen again? Your father told me a couple of times, but I don’t remember the details.” The king pressed, and Caryssa kept her eyes on her fingers, on the wooden direwolf ring that her brother had carved her for her last namesday. It bared its teeth at her, and, for a moment, it was like seeing the blood on her hands again. Crimson red dripping down her arms, sticking to her dress and hair. 

“He was a new guard in Winterfell, a farmer’s son from nearby who could not be housed by his family anymore, and he was drunk. Extremely so. The feast was still going on, but I had gone to bed. He had crept into my room, and he tried to…” Caryssa trailed off, her words sticking in her throat, but she forced them down, deciding to simply continue with the story. “I’d been having nightmares all week, a scary story told by my old wet nurse that I couldn’t shake off, and I had snuck one of my father’s old daggers into my room, sleeping with it under my pillow…When he climbed on top of me, I fought him as best I could, but he easily overpowered me, but…I managed to grab the knife. I stabbed him in the chest and in the throat, wherever I could reach.”

Caryssa’s eyes had glazed over as she told her story with her eyes still on her hands, the haunting image of the boy’s blood on her skin, on her dress, as vivid as the day it had happened. 

“I’m sorry, Lady Stark, that you went through that.” Ser Barristan offered, and Caryssa nodded, finally lifting her eyes off of her hands and placing them upon the king. King Robert was almost taken about by the burning anger in them, even if it reminded him of his Lyanna. He remembered one time he had laughed at her when she expressed a desire to be a knight, and she had glared at him with such hatred that he had apologized profusely, until she had forgiven him. 

“He was just seventeen. No older than my brother is now. He had a father who loved him, and three sisters who worshiped the ground he walked on. He was drunk, yes, but he was too drunk to have done anything. And I killed him. His blood is forever on my hands, and you make it sound like it was nothing, like it meant nothing,” Caryssa hissed at him, her hands clenched together in her lap. “No man, woman or child deserves for their life to be cut short, no matter who or what they are. Your war stories and the tragedy in my past are completely different things, Your Grace, and, if you do not mind, I wish to leave now, before you humiliate me further.”

The King was speechless it seemed, and simply nodded. Caryssa wasted no time in climbing to her feet, and sweeping out of the room, resisting the urge to slam the door closed behind her.

The King was a damn fool, she seethed in her mind, and not for the first time, Caryssa wished that she was in Winterfell, with her brothers. She wished her whole family were there, that the King had never gone to Winterfell, that her father had never accepted the role of the Hand of the King, and she wished that things were as they once were, when the past was where it belonged and no one pushed her to relive it or talk about it. 

But it all had happened, and there was no changing the past. When she was seven years old, she had lost her innocence in a sense, and there was no way to reclaim it. 

Nothing could change what had already been. Nothing could change what she had done, and one day, perhaps, she could learn to live with her past actions.

One day.

~*~

Another couple days passed and Caryssa did all she could to avoid her betrothed, and, for the most part, she was very successful. In lieu of her mother, the Queen, Septa Mordane and her new handmaiden, Daena, were planning her wedding, all three rarely asking for her input, though they did keep her busy with dress fittings and telling her their plans. 

When she wasn’t being whisked away because of wedding details, she was spending as much time as possible with her family. She would watch Arya with her dancing lessons with Syrio Forel, sometimes participating herself and she found she responded much better to the water dancing of the Braavosi than she did the regular Westerosi way. Sansa kept her occupied with walks with the direwolves in the gardens, and with more discussions of her wedding. Her sister was going to ask the gardeners if she could pick some flowers to weave so Caryssa would be wearing a flower crown; Sansa had found some white and winter roses she thought would complement her dress perfectly. If she were not with the girls, she trained with Jory in a secluded area, trying to better her skills with a blade so she could keep herself safer in the cesspool that was the capitol, or she would help her father sort through his thoughts about the matters of the Small Council, trying to help him alleviate some of his burdens. 

Her regular meetings with Cersei weren’t something she particularly enjoyed, and she knew the Queen did not either, as both of them found ways to verbally belittle the other with as much tact and subtlety as they could manage in their war of words. 

She had hidden herself away this day though, hiding under her bed like an infant when Daena had come in to look for her, needing some time alone. She had even sent Rhaenyra along with Arya to her dance lessons so anyone looking for her would go to the gardens assuming that she had gone to take the wolf for her daily walk.

So she sat needlepointing in the corner of her room, trying to occupy herself. She couldn’t go riding, not alone or with Robb like she would in Winterfell, and she couldn’t go to any of the places she had come to like in King’s Landing, like the markets in Flea Bottom or the gardens or the royal tailor, as her father, as well as the King, had insisted on giving her an escort when she was wandering alone.

The she-wolf felt caged, and she was not happy about it.

Caryssa was staring down at the grey direwolf staring up at her, when she noticed that she was suddenly not alone. She turned her eyes upwards, eyes wide when she saw the familiar golden knight that was her husband, in only a matter of days. Jaime looked less than impressed as he gazed down at her from his place in the door.

“How did you get in here?” She questioned, placing her needlepoint to one side as she rose out of her chair. 

“The door.” Jaime replied, in a tone that said his answer should have been the obvious one.

“All right, let me rephrase that, why are you in here?” Caryssa pressed, her hands on her hips as she stepped a little closer to him, angry that he had violated her private space, also a little concerned that he was in here, while she was in the tower alone. 

Her father was in another meeting with the Small Council, Sansa was in the gardens with Septa Mordane and Lady, Arya was at her dance lessons with Rhaenyra, and Daena was out searching for her somewhere. She was in her chambers, completely alone with the man who was to be her husband, the same man she had been avoiding ever since the king had forced her to admit her darkest secret. Only her father, her mother, Maester Luwin, Ser Rodrik, Jory, Robb, Jon and Theon knew about her seventh namesday…mishap, and now the king, Ser Barristan and her future husband knew about it too.

“You’ve been avoiding me.” He did not even question it, he knew that she had been avoiding him and stated it as fact, leaving her no other choice but to admit it.

“I have.”

“Because you think that I would think less of you for saving yourself from the advances of a drunken raper.” Again he merely stated it, as though it was practically a truth that had tumbled from the lips of one of the gods. 

“I do not particularly care if you think less of me. I care about how you found out. That secret was mine to choose when I revealed it, my past, my burden, and the king forced it out of me like it was sport, like it was funny to watch me wriggle and squirm as I relived every detail of it,” Caryssa divulged, averting her eyes away from his. Pity was not something she wished to see aimed at her, especially not from a Lannister, and especially not from him. “It was my secret to tell, and I would have liked to have felt completely comfortable with you, and with our…coupling, before I told it.”

“We are to be married in four days, you can call it a marriage, little wife. It won’t kill you to accept it as such.”

“I have accepted it!” Caryssa hissed at him, narrowing her eyes at him, not even realizing that he had stepped further into her room, closer to her than what would be deemed appropriate for two unmarried people alone and unsupervised. 

“Have you? So you wouldn’t mind if I do this?” Jaime said, before he took an extra step forward, raised her chin with two fingers and covered her mouth with his own. 

Her first kiss with Jaime. At first she stood stock still, flummoxed by the sudden action, enraged by it even, because how dare he just attack her like that, but then her body betrayed her. Her eyes fluttered closed, her fists unclenched at her sides and moved to grip his arms, and her mouth moved against his. Jaime’s arms moved to her waist, circling around her and pulling her body close to his, and she did not even protest it. 

Caryssa’s mind, or rather her sense, had seemed to disappear, as she simply melted into their shared embrace. Her hands trailed up his arms, realizing that she was feeling leather under her fingertips instead of cold armor, only then recognizing that he was not on duty that day as his white gold Kingsguard armor was nowhere to be seen, or felt rather. Her fingers danced along his shoulders, until they moved behind his neck and tangled themselves into that glorious golden mane. 

Neither of them let go as they broke apart for air, Caryssa not even opening her eyes.

“You wouldn’t mind that?” Jaime repeated, and Caryssa shook her head, before claiming his lips again, feeling a little wanton and wonderful at the same time. 

Caryssa had only shared brief kisses with her brothers before, familial affection, and once with Theon. Many things were said about Caryssa Stark, but no one in Winterfell ever said that she backed away from a dare. Robb had dared her to kiss Theon, and, despite her hatred of the Iron Islander, she kissed him full on the lips for ten seconds, before pulling away and wiping her mouth with her brother’s sleeve. That had been when she was eleven. The only other man she had kissed was Jory. That had been on her eighteen namesday, and she had gotten far drunker than she had wanted, and so had he, and they shared a rather sloppy, but no less passionate, kiss that neither spoke of again. 

This kiss, or these kisses, were far different to all of those. This was like fire; it seemed to burn and soothe at the same time. Jaime’s hands moved to the small of her back, pushing her even closer, eliminating all space between them. His mouth, Gods his mouth. She had once thought that he did not remain as celibate as a man of the Kingsguard should be, and with how his mouth both teased and took hers, she knew that she had been right, but she realized that she did not seem to care. His experience now made up for her lack of it. 

She gasped in surprise as he nipped her bottom lip with his teeth, before soothing it with his tongue and just when she had opened her mouth to his, a squeal of surprise had them both springing apart. 

Daena stumbled through her apologies, before backing out of the room, and just as Caryssa was about to follow her, smoothing down her hair and her dress, Jaime gripped her wrist and pulled her back into him, pressing a chaste kiss to her mouth.

“There will be a lot more of that come our wedding day, best prepare yourself for it.” He muttered, stealing another kiss, before he let her go, leaving her alone once more in her room.

Caryssa pressed her fingertips to her swollen mouth, marveling at the tingling she still felt in them. 

Perhaps, if kisses like that came with him, marriage to Jaime Lannister would not be as terrible as she had first thought it would be.

She may even enjoy it.


	12. The White Wedding

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "No matter how dark the moment, love and hope are always possible."
> 
> -George Chakiris

The day had finally arrived. Today was the day Caryssa would become the new Lady Lannister of Casterly Rock. Today was the day her father would lead her past hundreds of guests in the Great Sept of Baelor and give her hand to Ser Jaime Lannister, and she would become his lady wife, and he her lord husband. 

Caryssa was racking with nerves. Outwardly, she appeared as calm as she did on every other given day, but inwardly, she was shaking like a tiny leaf in the harsh northern winds during the summer snows. Septa Mordane and Daena had woke her up much earlier than she thought was really necessary and practically pushing her into a bath of hot, scented water. They scrubbed her skin until she thought it would bleed, and then washed her hair with more scented oils. Caryssa wondered what difference it would make to Jaime if her hair smelled like the same white roses or if it smelled ordinary, as she knew after the actual ceremony that he would only be after one thing and it wasn’t going to be a sniff of her pretty smelling hair. 

Once she was out of the bath, and dry, they dressed her in her wedding gown, tightening the laces in the back, until her bosom was slightly more pronounced, something that made her roll her eyes, and it was a little more difficult to breathe. Even when she asked them to loosen it, the septa told her to stop complaining. 

Catching sight of herself in the floor length mirror in her room, Caryssa could hardly believe her eyes. She had never actually seen herself in the dress, and, while she did not like the Queen in the slightest, she could see that Cersei had excellent taste. The gown was made of white silk with a layer of white lace with a flower pattern over the top of it, the sleeves and bust were well fitted, with an off-white belt to bring in the waist, with the skirt flowing down past her ankles so it brushed the ground when she walked. 

Caryssa thought herself to be a true beauty in the dress, marveling at how it felt against her skin, and how it looked. She wondered what Jaime would think of it. He more than likely would make a crude suggestion on how it would look better on the floor of his chambers than on her.

Eventually, her sisters and the Queen and Princess Myrcella joined Caryssa, the young girls looking excited (except Arya, who complained that her wedding was getting in the way of her dance lessons) for what the day would bring. Caryssa sat in a chair by her vanity table, her hair all brushed through and clean, waiting for the women behind her to decide what they were going to do with her hair. The Queen was advocating for an intricate southern style, while Septa Mordane wanted to do a simple northern braid leaving most of her hair down to flow around her shoulders. 

Caryssa wanted the northern style. She wanted to feel comfortable and normal, but she knew that her opinion would not really matter. It did not even feel like her wedding. It felt like the kingdom’s wedding. It felt like everyone, but her, had a say in what happened, how it happened and what it all looked like.

When she was a child, no older than nine or ten, she talked to her mother about what type of wedding she wanted. Caryssa had always wanted to be married in front of a weirwood tree, to say her vows in front of the old gods, to be married in a true Northern way. Her mother had smiled, and said, that when the time came, Caryssa could have anything she wished as it would be her day.

Yet, she had nothing of what she wanted, but that didn’t mean she wouldn’t try.

“I would like northern braids, and Sansa’s flower circlet. I would like that one thing, if that’s not too much to ask,” Caryssa snapped, as the queen made another comment on how Caryssa would no longer be a northerner once marrying her brother so clinging to her northern ways was almost childish. “I am sure Jaime would prefer my hair to be down anyway.”

“Little Dove, you can do your sister’s hair, since she wants something so simple.” Cersei commented, her lip curling into a smirk that let Caryssa know that the whole ‘simple’ bit was meant as an insult.

Caryssa said nothing in return, but simply stared back at the queen as she draped herself across a chaise, sipping from a large goblet of wine. Cersei wore a crimson dress with gold embellishments, her hair twisted up and out of her face in one of the very designs she had been advocating for the Stark woman. Yet Caryssa felt she would look silly with her hair like that, especially in comparison to Cersei. There was a reason that men called the lioness the most beautiful woman in the seven kingdoms, and Caryssa did not want yet another reason to feel inadequate when it came to Cersei. 

She was just the Beauty of the North, Cersei was the Beauty of all Westeros. She couldn’t even compare to the older woman, in her eyes, but she wouldn’t let Cersei have that satisfaction. Caryssa would have her own style and be her own woman without following the rest of the women in court. She’d remain true to herself and her northern roots. 

Sansa was more than happy to do Caryssa’s hair, twisting and tugging, brushing it through again, before she had finally finished. It looked beautiful, and far less simple than Cersei had said. One large thick braid fell down her back, on top of a curtain of her dark hair, with smaller braids twisted through it and falling down her back. Sansa then placed the white and winter rose circlet on top of her head, and Caryssa beamed proudly.

“Thank you, little wolf. It’s beautiful,” Caryssa stated, rising from her seat, and kissing Sansa’s cheek. She then stole a glance at Arya, surprised that her hair was neatly braided and she was wearing a pretty grey dress, similarly designed to Sansa’s light blue one. “I must be dreaming, after all, I had not heard the usual battle that comes with getting this little wolf into a dress.”

“Septa Mordane told me that I wasn’t allowed to cause trouble on your special day.” Arya huffed, and Caryssa laughed. 

“Not even a little? That sounds absolutely boring.” Caryssa replied, a smile still spread across her lips. If she couldn’t have her mother with her, her sisters would be comfort enough. If Arya managed to cause even a little mischief at this wedding or the feast after, Caryssa would feel a little less homesick.

“This is my brother’s wedding. No one is going to embarrass him, especially not wild little wolves.” Cersei snapped, and Caryssa did not even turn to look at the queen, bending down to kiss Arya on the forehead, then her cheek, so she was close enough to whisper something in her ear. The frown on the youngest Stark girl’s face disappeared almost instantly, and she nodded once. 

Caryssa straightened up, before walking over to the trunk in her room that held her wedding shoes. Grey-silver slippers with glittering beads sewn all over, they were very pretty. Caryssa slipped them on, before turning back to the women behind her. 

“I think I’m ready.”

A knock came at the open door, and Caryssa saw her father stood there, his eyes fixed on her, almost as though he were dazed at the sight of her. She wondered if it was really her he was seeing or his sister, something that only bothered her a little.

“Not without this,” He murmured, stepping into the room, a large, heavy piece of cloth in his arms. Her maiden cloak, she realized, as he unfolded it. “Your mother started sewing this for you when you were born. She made sure I had it before we left Winterfell.”

Caryssa’s eyes glassed over with unshed tears that she tried her best to hold in, as Ned stepped closer to his daughter, wrapping the cloak around her shoulders and fiddling with the clasps until he was sure it would not fall. Caryssa had barely noticed that all the women had left, too absorbed in this one beautiful moment with her father to see them all shuffle out to leave for the Great Sept of Baelor. 

Ned wanted to weep for the first time since Bran had fallen, but he didn’t. He could see that his daughter was struggling to keep up her mask of indifference, the one she opted for when she was feeling vulnerable, and knew that he had to be strong for her. Ned grasped her hands in one of his, using his free hand to force her chin up so she would look at him. 

“I am, as I always have been, proud of you. I don’t know if I say that enough,” Ned muttered, his eyes on their hands for a moment before lifting to those shocking blue Tully eyes she had inherited from her mother. The one thing that did not belong to his sister. “I’ve fought wars, rebellions, battles…and nothing has terrified me so much as standing here with you on your wedding day. The day I lose my daughter to another man.”

“You aren’t losing me, I told you that.” Caryssa tried to smile, let him know that she had finally accepted her fate, but she wasn’t sure it was very convincing. She knew that there were a lot worse men out there than Jaime Lannister, and that maybe their marriage would work out well, like her parents’ one did. 

Ned Stark nodded, remembering her words from the other day. 

I am a Stark of Winterfell, the She-Wolf of the North, and your daughter, first, last and always.

She would always be his, would always be an untamable she-wolf with the cold of the North flowing through her veins, the essence of Winterfell in her blood. Ned knew that if Jaime Lannister thought he could change his daughter into a lioness then he would end up a miserable man indeed. 

“I know that things are difficult, tensions between our family and his will cause problems, but you should know this…if he hurts you, I’ll kill him.”

“If he hurts me, he’d be dead long before you could get your hands on him.” Caryssa stated, and, having heard the millions of death threats she had issued to his ward, Theon Greyjoy, over the years, Ned was not surprised to hear those words fall from his daughter’s lips. 

“Come. Everyone is waiting.” Ned said, offering her his arm.

She took it, and Ned led his daughter to her future, unsure of whether he had made the right choice in marrying her off to a Lannister. 

Only the Gods could see all ends, and only time would tell if his choice was right or wrong.

~*~

When the doors to the Great Sept opened, revealing all the people it held within, the nervous Caryssa had all but vanished. She had channeled the grace her mother had tried to instill in her, and the confidence Robb often exuded. She kept her head raised high, and a smile on her lips, ignoring the murmuring of those around her that threatened to distract her. 

Her father’s hand on her arm only reassured her further, as they walked up the aisle and up the steps to where Jaime stood, dressed in deep red clothes trimmed with gold, waiting for her. Ned removed the maiden cloak from her shoulders, symbolically removing her from his protection, and, with an almost dramatic flourish, Jaime removed his cloak of House Lannister and draped it around her shoulders, making her his. 

Caryssa eyed him, as she took his hand and let him lead her up another couple of steps until they were stood before the High Septon. Jaime was smiling, not a smirk, a real smile, and it confused Caryssa. She did not think that their marriage would bring him happiness, after all, he was adamantly keeping his position as a knight of the Kingsguard. So why was he smiling so widely?

The High Septon stepped forward, a length of cloth in his hand to wrap around their joined hands, and began to speak. 

“Let it be known that Caryssa of the House Stark, and Jaime of the House Lannister are one heart,” The High Septon declared, wrapping the cloth around their hands, and placing his hand on top. Caryssa locked eyes with her husband as the cloth was removed, and allowed a small smile to grace her face. “One flesh, and one soul. Cursed be he who would seek to tear them asunder! Look upon one another and say the words.”

Jaime and Caryssa spoke their vows together, as was the custom, and Caryssa could barely hear herself say them. All she could think was that now she was a Lannister. She was married. 

She would never go home again.

“With this kiss, I pledge my love.” Jaime declared, following tradition, his green eyes never leaving her blue ones, before he leaned in and pressed a firm kiss to her lips, both of them pulling away to the sound of applause. 

Tearing her eyes off of his, Caryssa swallowed the lump in her throat and beamed at the congregation, who still applauded the newly married couple. Her eyes found her family, and the smile she was faking became real as she watched Sansa clapping almost too enthusiastically, a wide grin on her face, Arya looking positively bored as she clapped half-heartedly and her father worried as he looked upon her, and she knew that he was second guessing himself again. 

Caryssa was a Stark in name no longer. Now the world would know her as Lady Caryssa of House Lannister, and, for now, she did not know what exactly she felt about that fact. 

All she knew was she very nearly trusted the man she stood beside, enough so to marry him, and for now that would be enough.

Love would have to come later.

~*~

The feast was a small affair in the Great Hall of the Red Keep, but Caryssa was pleased with it. She sat with Jaime at the left side of the King and Queen, talking quietly with him about anything and everything; about Casterly Rock, about how he had servants move her belongings during the ceremony to the rooms they would be sharing as man and wife, about his uncles who had come to their wedding and his father who had not been able to make it. 

Caryssa was not all that disappointed about the lack of Tywin Lannister at her wedding, but she was disappointed that Tyrion had not made it back. He had written her a letter, sending his most humble of apologies for being absent from their celebrations, but he had just left the Wall and was making his way to Winterfell before journeying the Kingsroad back to the capitol. She hoped that he and her mother would not cross paths, as she knew her mother’s temper would surely get her in to trouble. 

Caryssa sighed. Her mother. She wished her mother and her brothers were with them. Robb had always promised to dance with her at her wedding, and to threaten her new husband to keep her happy or he’d rip said man to pieces with his bare hands. Caryssa had always laughed at him when he said that, but she’d always thank him for it. Now she wished he was here to keep his promises.

But he was in Winterfell, miles and miles and miles away from her. 

“You wish that the rest of your family were here, don’t you?” Jaime questioned, reclaiming her attention, and she nodded, popping a grape from her plate into her mouth. She had not eaten much, her insides twisted with nerves for what was to come, but she tried to eat enough that the wine she was drinking would not go to her head. 

“My family is important to me. I would have liked them to be here, especially my mother,” Caryssa sighed again, but shook her head. “Bran is still too weak to travel and he needs a lot of care and attention. And there must always be a Stark in Winterfell. I understand why it was impossible.”

“Yet, you still wish they had come.”

“Stupid and irrational as it may be, yes. Do you wish that your father had been able to attend?” Caryssa asked, taking another sip of wine to calm herself. 

The feast had been going on for some time now, and she knew that any moment now, some drunken letch would call out for the bedding ceremony to begin. Call her a prude, but Caryssa had always thought the bedding ceremony to be barbaric and distasteful. Only a bride’s husband should see her naked, not scores of other men.

“Do you really wish to talk about my father or do you wish to leave before the king announces its time for the bedding?”

Caryssa eyed him curiously, wondering why he was playing at being gallant, and opened her mouth to question him about it, when he leaned further towards her.

“I do not want any other man to see exactly what is under that beautiful dress of yours. It’s our wedding and I’d rather not have to kill several men for staring at my naked wife.” Jaime explained, his warm breath leaving the skin of her neck heated and tingling. 

She had never really felt attracted to other men before. The men she spent most of her time with in Winterfell had been her brothers, her father, the master, and Jory. She had believed once that she had felt something more than friendly affection for Jory at one point in her life, but she realized that it was really just a friendly love.

With Jaime, while he frustrated her beyond belief at times and he could be crude and verbally repugnant, there was no denying that he was by far the most handsome she had seen, that had not been related to her. She was physically attracted to him, she knew, and she had actually begun to be comfortable in his company, which is why she had fought him so hard. 

At the time of their betrothal, she had thought it was in her best interests to fight her attraction for him, to hide those feelings beneath an icy exterior, in case she could make her father change his mind. Then she had come to know Jaime, and her father did not change his mind, and she realized that underneath his mask of arrogance and bravado, Ser Jaime was not as bad as he wished everyone to believe. 

Now, Caryssa nodded her acceptance, and rose from the table with her husband. The King was not in his seat anymore and everyone else was too drunk or too occupied with their own conversations to notice the bride and groom sneak out of the hall. Except Ned Stark. He caught Jaime’s eyes, and nodded his approval, surprising the Lannister man. Ned Stark giving him his approval? Times really had changed.

Once they reached his bedchamber, Caryssa heard the click of the lock on the door as Jaime bolted it behind them, as she noticed that he really had gotten her things moved. Her vanity table was pushed up against the far corner, with her brush, hand mirror, jewelry box and hair things all neatly placed on top. She moved to his closet and saw her dresses hanging next to his clothes. Her books were stacked on her bookshelf, and she saw the trunks with her shoes and weapons in them by the vanity table. 

The comfort of seeing her belongings, things from home, almost evaporated completely when her eyes found the large bed.

“I hope everything is to your liking. Your sister gave your handmaiden a list of things she thought you would like to bring over. She’s going to bring your wolf here in a couple of days once we’re settled.” Jaime informed her, handing her a goblet of wine, which she accepted gratefully, taking large gulps of the sweet Dornish wine to calm her nerves again. 

Caryssa moved away from him to her vanity where she placed her goblet down and started to remove all the pins and braids Sansa had put into her hair. It gave her a little more time, but Jaime seemed to sense that she was stalling because of her nerves. She felt him behind her before she really even knew he was there, so she didn’t start when his fingers brushed her long hair over her shoulder, before they moved to the laces of her dress.

The she-wolf bit her lip as his fingers ghosted down her spine every time he undid a lace, more aroused by simple touches than she thought she would be. Every so often, his lips would press against the soft skin of her neck and shoulders, and Caryssa bit back sighs of pleasure. He was being gentle. Far more gentle than his sister had told her to expect. 

~*~

Cersei had called her to afternoon tea in her solar, and, as she was the queen, Caryssa was forced to accept the invitation. As soon as their tea had been served and Caryssa had taken the first sip, Cersei had started talk about the upcoming wedding, the only conversation the Stark woman seemed to have with anyone as the wedding grew closer. 

They talked politely about her dress as it had now been finished, and whether the king or her father would walk her down the aisle. Caryssa had chosen her father, though she had thanked the king for his offer, and the queen seemed to become less tense at her answer. Then the conversation took a rather unwanted turn, in Caryssa’s point of view at least. 

“Did your mother tell you what to expect from the marriage bed, Lady Caryssa?” Cersei questioned, and Caryssa’s body tensed and she paused in taking a sip of her sweet tea, lowering the cup back to the table.

“Yes, Your Grace. Why do you ask?”

“I simply doubt she prepared you for Jaime. That is all, little wolf. After all, Jaime is a warrior, a knight of the Kingsguard. Warriors are far rougher when taking a woman than most men. Robert was the same. All sweetness and civility in public, than brutal when he took my maidenhead,” Cersei stated, as if it was perfectly normal to talk about such things at afternoon tea with the woman you hated who was going to marry your brother. “I imagine Jaime will be the same. He most likely will not have had much opportunity to sate himself since we were in the northern wasteland you called home. Yet you will do your duty to him as his wife, and take the pain he inflicts, and bear him sons. Won’t you, Lady Stark?”

“Yes, Your Grace.” Caryssa bit out through gritted teeth, not knowing that her future husband had heard every word his sister had said.

~*~

“I won’t hurt you, wife.” Jaime murmured against her skin, her dress falling away as he tugged loose the last lace and pooling at her feet, leaving her in a thin white shift.

“Good,” Caryssa managed to choke out, turning around to face him, surprised when she saw he had already removed his doublet and tunic, leaving him bare chested. She felt her cheeks redden as she stared, but tore her eyes away from his torso and to his face. “Because if you did, you’d become more acquainted with your hands than you would with me.”

Jaime barked out a laugh at her words, causing an indignant look to appear on his wife’s face. She did not enjoy being laughed at.

“Would I, little wife? You think that you could go without me sating your own desires?” Jaime questioned, ducking down to press his lips feverishly to hers. Caryssa gasped against his mouth, her hands flying up to grip his shoulders to avoid falling back at the passionate kiss. Jaime wrapped one arm around her waist, pulling him flush against him, while the other tangled itself in her long, dark locks, as both of their mouths moved together, both out to take as much as the other would give. He pulled away too quickly, Caryssa still leaning into his phantom kiss. “You think you could go without that?”

“I’m-I’m sure I could find a way to occupy myself. I could read, I could-” Jaime cut her off with another bruising kiss, his hands gripping her thighs tightly as he lifted her up, her legs instinctively wrapping themselves around his waist. She gasped as she felt his hardness against her belly, and Jaime took her surprise as opportunity to lick inside her mouth. Her own tongue hesitantly moved to tangle with his, and pride warmed her chest when she heard a low moan erupt from Jaime’s chest. 

Jaime walked them to the bed, breaking their kiss to put Caryssa back on to her feet, before slowly, teasingly, removed his breeches leaving him as naked as his namesday. Caryssa’s eyes widened slightly as her gaze fell downwards, before abruptly looking back at his face, her cheeks burning red in her embarrassment.

“No need to blush, dear wife, we’re married now. Which means you can shamelessly examine my cock as much as you like. I encourage it even,” Jaime teased her, and Caryssa glared at him, wishing he’d use less abrasive language when she was clearly nervous. “Are you going to leave me naked alone?”

Staring back at him, a glare still present, Caryssa found the hem of her shift and pulled it over her head, dropping it to the floor. Instead of covering herself up, like her inner insecurities desperately wanted her to, she raised her chin and kept her arms by her side as Jaime’s eyes roamed her naked body. She knew that he was attracted to her, she could see the evidence of that very clearly so she tried to ignore the little voices in her head that told her otherwise. Funnily enough, they all sounded like his sister. 

Jaime didn’t pounce on her like she expected him to, like the Queen had told her he would. No, instead he moved past her, her eyes following him as he sat on the bed, before he reached out to take her hand and tugged her towards him. He pulled her onto his lap, smirking at the little involuntary moan that escaped her mouth when his cock brushed against her entrance, before smothering the delicious sound with a kiss. She wrapped an arm around his shoulders, her brows knitted together as she felt an uncomfortable, but not undesirable, heat pooling below. She shifted slightly in Jaime’s lap, gasping into his mouth at the satisfying feeling the friction created. 

Her husband laid her on her back, refusing to break their kiss again, and caged her underneath his body. Ordinarily, Caryssa would not have accepted this, not liking anything that closed her in, but her mind was otherwise occupied with the muscled, golden man flush against her to care all that much about what position she was in. 

“I’m curious,” Jaime panted against her mouth, sipping from her lips once more before continuing. “Have you ever thought about what it would be like bedding your future husband?”

Caryssa opened her mouth to answer, but all that came out was a sigh of pleasure as Jaime sucked her nipple into his mouth, suckling and lightly nipping with his teeth. Only once he had made her moan, did he stop and kiss down her body, licking down the valley of her breasts before kissing a path down her stomach. Caryssa felt him nudge her knees apart, settling between her legs. 

Her eyes shot open as he kissed her inner thigh and then felt his breath hitting the wet heat between her thighs. Their eyes locked together, as he swept his tongue over her warm wetness, her eyes widening in shock and pleasure. 

“W-what are you doing?” Her voice was shaky, breathless, and she was unsure of whether or not this was appropriate, even between husband and wife. Her mother had certainly not told her about that, and for that matter neither had Ros, Theon’s whore. Perhaps Theon wasn’t as accomplished in bed as he liked to tell everyone, because she had, though she would not say the words aloud, enjoyed what Jaime had done, especially the sight of him between her legs.

“Just trust me. It’ll feel good.” Jaime’s voice smooth and seductive, sending shivers down her spine. 

She nodded, and he moved his mouth back to kiss her soft folds, feeling her body surrendering to his ministrations. Jaime listened to the noises she made, as he licked her lightly, before pushing his tongue inside of her. Caryssa’s moans almost seemed to echo throughout the room, especially when her lord husband slid a finger, then another, inside her, groaning at how tight she felt. 

Her hands tangled in his hair as he continued to lick, kiss and suck her until she tightened around his fingers, his name repeatedly falling from her lips as he brought her to the height of pleasure. He rubbed that little nub of nerves with his thumb, making her hips buck into his face, as her body spasmed around his fingers. 

Caryssa panted, trying to catch her breath as she came down from the high Jaime had taken her to.

She could feel herself trembling, both from the pleasure she had just experienced and from the anticipation of what else was to come, as Jaime crawled back up her body. He kissed her, trying to distract her, as he placed himself at her entrance, pushing the head of his cock in. He was rock hard, almost painfully so, having listened to all those breathy sighs and throaty moans escape her mouth as he went down on her. Her relaxed body tensed slightly at the intrusion, but he whispered comforts into her ear that calmed her again, before he slowly guided himself inside of her.

He hitched her leg around his hip, their eyes locked together as he broke through her maidenhead. She gritted her teeth against the pain, desperate not to cry out, but Jaime’s lips against hers forced her to relax her jaw again.

“You feel amazing, Ryssa. Relax. The pain will ease up,” Jaime murmured against her lips, his hands smoothing down her sides. Instead of choking out a reply, Caryssa buried her face into his shoulder, biting her lip at the discomfort she felt. “I promise you nothing but pleasure from now on.”

Jaime stayed still as long as possible, resisting the urge to move for the sake of letting her body get used to him, but soon he had to move. At first, his slow thrusts into her did nothing to decrease the uncomfortable, unfamiliar feeling of being stretched, but soon, sparks of pleasure started to build, and her gasps of pain turned into sighs of pleasure that were in time to his own groans of satisfaction. 

This is amazing, she thought, as she bucked her hips up into his, spurring him to move faster. Jaime shifted slightly, pushing deeper with each thrust, finding her pleasure spot and repeated the action over and over again once he felt her walls begin to tighten around his cock. Caryssa worried about being too loud, though she knew most people would still be at the feast, so muffled her cries by clamping her mouth down on Jaime’s shoulder, not that he noticed. 

Her legs wrapped tightly around his hips, pushing her feet against his buttocks to get him deeper within her, feeling a strong desire to have his body as close to hers as they could manage.

After several more thrusts, Jaime felt his wife’s nails dig into the skin of his back as she peaked, her groans of ecstasy muffled by his shoulder in her mouth, and he picked up his speed, chasing his own end until he came hard, emptying his seed inside of her. 

They were both breathing heavily when Jaime pulled out of her, and rolled onto his back beside her, and Caryssa resisted the urge to laugh. She had been so against marrying Jaime, marrying anyone at all, and yet it came with this amazing benefit. Perhaps the married life wouldn’t be so bad. 

She almost squealed in surprise when her husband tugged her into his side, cuddling her against him. Caryssa rested her head on his chest, smiling when she felt his lips press against her damp hair, his hand running down her arm and side. 

The motion, as well as their lovemaking, lulled her into a peaceful sleep, the smile widening as she dreamed.


	13. The Favor of the Wolf

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Be faithful in small things because it is in them that your strength lies."
> 
> -Mother Teresa

The week following her wedding seemed to pass by in a blur. The following day after their wedding, Caryssa and Jaime had not left their bed. It took some convincing, but Jaime eventually managed to keep his little wife in his bed the whole day, learning all there was to know about her body, its likes and dislikes. Caryssa thought she knew what exhaustion felt like, when her limbs were heavy and aching, but she hadn’t truly felt it until then, until Jaime had taken her in every which way he desired, and she desired, until they both collapsed onto the sheets, barely able to move past cuddling into each other once more.

They had settled in to a routine after that. Jaime would wake her by curling his fingers inside her, they’d fuck or make love, depending on whether or not she was happy to be woken, and then she’d linger in bed a while longer when he dressed and went to train with the other men of Kingsguard. Caryssa would then be dragged out of her bed by Daena, washed and dressed by her handmaiden, before she decided what she would do that day.

Being the future Lady of the Rock, when her husband decided to step down from the Kingsguard like he was offered, she had no real duties in the Keep, aside from breaking fast with the royal family on occasion. After the first time of breaking fast with the Baratheons, having the king ask her crude questions about her and Jaime’s lovemaking, Cersei making snide comments, and the Prince following his father with rude statements about her sex life, she decided that she’d rather not make their visits a regular occurrence, preferring to break fast with Jamie alone, or with her own family. 

This day, however, she did not have to struggle with something to occupy her time with while her husband did his duties to the king. This day was the beginning of the Tourney of the Hand. Knights from all over Westeros had journeyed to the capitol to take part, and people from all over had converged on the capitol to watch the festivities. 

Caryssa was excited. Her mother had told her stories of tourneys, of knights and champions and the maidens that were selected to be the queen of love and beauty. She was not a foolish romantic like her sister, Sansa, but she did love those stories for the excitement and thrill she knew her mother must have felt being part of them.

When she woke that morning, Jaime had been slow with her, the way he had been when they first consummated their marriage, his thrusts languid and long, like he was trying not to tire himself before he took part in the day’s events. It was only when she saw stars, her moans getting louder as she came, did he fasten his pace, chasing his own satisfaction, before he collapsed beside her.

Caryssa smiled once she caught her breath, turning to Jaime when she felt his eyes on her.

“I never thought you’d be so willing in my bed. Under all that ice is fire, like Tyrion said.” Jaime commented, sweeping her hair over her naked shoulder. 

She had many nightgowns, but with Jaime’s never sated lust, she never had opportunity to wear them. She had tried once, but her lord husband had only gotten frustrated with the barrier between their bodies that he ripped it away from her. Caryssa had been livid, and showed him by digging her nails hard into him as he took her, biting down on his shoulder so hard she accidentally broke the skin. She didn’t apologize and he didn’t ask for one, simply chuckling at the mark, before pulling her into him.

“Our bed, husband. And a person cannot be both ice and fire. They’d melt from the heat and douse their own flames, and I’m sure you’d be positively overcome with sadness if your Ice Lady melted into nothing.” She mocked him, as she crawled onto his lap, straddling him with a smirk on her lips. 

“I’m sure I would. I’ve become quite used to returning to a dutiful and insatiable wife warming my-our bed,” Jaime replied, his fingers gripping her hips slightly, correcting himself when she pinched his arm at his slip-up. He patted her on the rear, before pinning her to the bed in a move so quick she wasn’t quite sure how he’d accomplished it. “And, as much as I’d like to take my sweet wife again and again until she could no longer move without being reminded of me rutting between her legs, I have a tourney to start winning.”

Caryssa rolled her eyes at his arrogance as he reluctantly climbed off her with a parting kiss, and began to dress himself. His armor would be waiting for him in his tent by the tourney fields, so he simply pulled on his tunic, breeches and boots, turning back once he was dressed to find his wife watching him from under the covers of their bed. 

He moved back towards her, remembering that he had one thing to claim from her before he left for the tourney, and perched himself on the edge of the bed, hand reached out to cup her cheek.

“Lady Caryssa Lannister, dear little wife, might I have your favor?” Jaime requested, his eyes sparkling as he teased her, daring her to say no. Caryssa smirked at him, pushing his hand away, before she climbed out of the bed. At first she had been hesitant to walk about their chambers naked in front of him, but she had done it once and he’d taken her roughly against the wall, and Caryssa had decided that perhaps being more of an exhibitionist was not so unwelcomed. 

“How do you know that I haven’t already given my favor to one of your competitors?” Caryssa asked him, as she picked the dress she would wear for the start of the tourney. Picking a dress of light blue, a color that made the Tully blue of her eyes stand out, with fur trim around the sleeves, she turned to him and held it against her frame for his approval. Not that it mattered. She dressed for herself, but she found she liked the little morning routine they had developed.

“Who would you give your favor to if not your husband?” Jaime questioned, as he nodded, liking the look of the light blue against her fair skin. She did not have any Lannister colors in her wardrobe, and Jaime wondered what she would look like in crimson. He’d have to have the royal seamstress make her some gowns. He couldn’t have people think that she was still a Stark in name, not when she was his now.

“I heard Lord Loras of House Tyrell would be in the joust today. Perhaps I gave him my favor. I’ve heard he’s quite handsome.” Caryssa teased, as she pulled the dress on, reaching behind her to pull on the laces she could reach, until his hands replaced hers.

He tugged tighter than was necessary, causing his wife to scowl and grip her vanity table for support. Even Septa Mordane was gentler than him, and she pulled her dresses so tight that she sometimes struggled to breathe. When her dress was tied, Jaime spun her in his arms, and pressed his mouth to hers, possessing her completely, but just when she started to respond, he pulled away.

“Who are you giving your favor to, wife?” Jaime smirked in victory at her dazed, heavy-lidded gaze, until she rolled her eyes at him. 

“As irritating and oddly attractive as I find your strangely possessive habits, please do not attack the Tyrell boy just because I said that I heard he was attractive,” Caryssa instructed, as she turned to her vanity table and picked up her direwolf pin. It was important to her. More important than scraps of ribbon or a handkerchief with her initials sewn into the corner. She turned back to him, her fingers stroking the silver pin reverently, before she held it out to him. “Here is my favor, husband. Don’t lose it or damage it, or I’ll have your head. It was a present from my uncle Brandon before he died. He gave it to me for my second namesday. It’s all I have of him.”

Jaime nodded, taking the pin, before mentally planning where he would put it on his person for the crowds to see. If her favor had come in the form of a ribbon or handkerchief it would have been all too easy to tie it around the armor protecting his arm, but now he’d have to think of something much cleverer. 

Caryssa smiled, as Jaime looked thoughtful, before she continued to get ready. Turning to her jewelry box, she pulled out her necklace and fastened it around her neck, just as Daena knocked to announce herself, opening their chamber door, Rhaenyra scrambling inside to see her mistress. The direwolf guarded their door at night, even though they had acquired her a large dog bed that was placed near the fire. 

“Oh, my lady, you’re already dressed!” Daena exclaimed in surprise. Caryssa had to hold in a chuckle at that, as she crouched down to pet her wolf. Her first week of sharing a bed with a man, with Jaime, had left her quite useless when it came to getting herself ready for the day. 

“My hair still needs brushing and braiding, Daena, if that’s alright?” Caryssa asked, ignoring Jaime when he scoffed. He had come to realize that his wife was probably more courteous and polite to servants and the common folk than she was to high-born lords and ladies, and it amused him to no end, even after she explained that it must be a difficult job rushing about to clean up after lords and ladies while catering to their every whim.

“Of course, my lady.” Daena replied, moving towards her charge, ushering her into the chair in front of the vanity and taking her long, ebony locks into her hand to begin combing it through.

“I’ll look for you in the stands, little wife.”

“I’ll be sitting with Sansa and Arya, so find Sansa’s flame-red hair and I’ll be the slightly taller woman in blue.” Caryssa teased him, hearing him chuckle as he left their chambers, whistling for her wolf to follow. 

Surprisingly, Jaime and Rhaenyra had taken quite well to each other. Caryssa was expecting to have to keep Rhaenyra with Arya, fearing that she’d decide she didn’t like her mistress’ new husband and try to attack him. Jaime joined them on their walks in the gardens and she knew that he sneaked the wolf extra food when he thought she wasn’t looking. Rhaenyra trusted him, and it made Caryssa trusting him that much easier, because she knew that her wolf’s intuition when it came to people was always on point.

Caryssa did not worry about why he had called for the direwolf, guessing that he was going to take Rhaenyra to relieve herself, before sending her back with a squire. She just hoped he’d pick someone who wouldn’t wet themselves with fear at the animal. When she and Rhaenyra would walk the gardens, anybody she encountered would turn and walk away as quickly as possible, except for Baelish. The couple times she had walked Rhaenyra without Jaime, when he had been back on duty, she’d almost always bumped into Baelish. 

She didn’t like him. That stare, the glint in his eyes, the smirk on his lips. The way she always had to replay his words and work out the underlying meaning. He was ambitious, Jaime had told her so, but just how far he would go for power is what remained to be seen. Caryssa knew that he was casting doubt over Tyrion, and she just hoped that her mother was wise enough not to try and find the little lion without her father finding any proof. 

So caught up in her musings, she barely noticed that Daena had finished braiding her hair. 

“What do you think, my lady?”

“It’s beautiful, Daena. Thank you. Sansa will envy your handiwork.” Caryssa praised, rising to her feet, as Daena stepped away to her oak trunk and found a pair of blue shoes to wear to match her dress, while Caryssa strapped her dagger to her leg as soon as her maid’s back was turned. She liked Daena well enough, but she suspected that the girl was under Cersei’s thumb, so didn’t want the fact that she wore a secret dagger to get back to the queen. 

She slipped on the pair of shoes, murmuring her thanks to Daena as the girl led her out to her and Jaime’s solar to eat her morning meal. It was fruits mainly, bread, butter and jam, and some bacon. Caryssa ate quickly, knowing that soon she’d have the impatient knocking of Arya on her solar door, and as though her sister sensed that thought, the rapping on the wood started. 

Daena let them in, not surprised to see Rhaenyra back with them as Arya led her in by her leash, smiling politely at Septa Mordane who was chaperoning them. 

“Have you both eaten?” Caryssa questioned, noticing the leftover food she had not consumed herself.

“They ate well when they broke their fast this morning.” Septa Mordane answered for them, and Caryssa nodded, turning to Daena.

“Have you eaten this morning?”

“Not yet, my lady. The household staff eat after their lords and ladies.” Daena replied, and Caryssa ushered her into her vacated seat, ignoring the girl’s protests. She knew that Daena would eat with the rest of the staff in the kitchens later, maybe some leftover fruit and bread, but she knew that a growing girl like Daena needed to eat more. She thought her maid to be a little too skinny than what was healthy. 

“I insist that you help yourself to some food. Once you’ve eaten, you can tend to your chores,” Caryssa declared, her tone of voice not leaving much room for argument, and Daena shook her head. “Septa Mordane and I will be taking the girls to watch the tourney, so you will have most of the day to yourself to do as you wish. Just make sure that someone takes Rhaenyra for her walk around midday.”

“That’s most kind of you, my lady. Thank you.”

Caryssa smiled, before she gestured for her sisters and the septa to follow her from the room. 

“Are you excited for the tourney, Ryssa? Did you give Ser Jamie your favor?” Sansa questioned, as they began their walk to the tourney grounds. Caryssa turned her head to smile softly at her younger sister, who had looped their arms almost as soon as they had walked out of the door. Arya walked on Caryssa’s other side, though Caryssa knew that there would be no hand holding with the little she-wolf. It just wasn’t her.

“I am and I did.” Caryssa answered, and Sansa looked her sister over, trying to see what was amiss so she knew what to look for. Sansa had thought she would have given him the necklace Aunt Lyanna had given her when she was a babe to wear, but it still hung from her neck. Then Sansa saw it, or rather didn’t see it. Her direwolf brooch that she usually pinned to her dresses was missing. Caryssa almost jumped in the air, when Sansa started to laugh, the laugh light and twinkling but louder than she was used to from the young girl.

“You got Ser Jaime to wear your direwolf pin. The golden lion wearing the pin depicting his silver she-wolf. He must love you,” Sansa stated, and Caryssa kept up her smile. She did not want to ruin Sansa’s romantic notions of knights and their ladies. She knew that she and Jaime weren’t in love. They were…content in their marriage, in each other’s company, but it wasn’t love. She wasn’t fool enough to believe that their marriage and clear physical attraction equaled love. “Joffrey doesn’t even like me.”

“One thing you have to learn about men, sweet sister, is that their egos are easily bruised and dented, easier than they are swollen and inflated. When Nymeria attacked him and Arya bested him, it wounded his ego and his pride, and he’s angry at you because you witnessed it all,” Caryssa stated, trying to soothe her sister’s mind. “You’ll just have to wait for him to come to his senses. He’s just a boy, after all. If he doesn’t…perhaps I can persuade my husband to meddle.”

“Do you think he will? Joffrey, I mean. Do you think he will come to his senses?”

“I do. No doubt the queen will help him. Men always need a little nudge from a woman to see sense, before they claim that they figured it all out themselves,” Caryssa joked, causing a smile to brighten her sister’s face again. “I’m sure everything will turn out right in the end.”

~*~

The tourney had not yet begun, but the King was already drunk, wine spilling out of his ivory drinking horn when he wasn’t focused on it. Caryssa rolled her eyes, and turned her head back to the field. They were seated close to the royal box, just in front of Lord Renly, the King’s younger brother. There was a space next to Caryssa meant for her father, but he had other matters to tend to, and would most likely not be able to attend until the next day. 

She saw Sansa smile up at Joffrey in her peripheral vision, and saw him look away, leaving her sister disappointed. Caryssa took her hand and squeezed it about to open her mouth to remind her to give it time, when another voice sent chills down her spine and stopped her.

“Lover’s quarrel?” 

“I’m sorry. Do I…?” Sansa trailed off, not really knowing what to say to the strange man towering over her sister where she sat. She noticed that Caryssa did not seem very pleased to see him, feeling her sister’s hand grip hers just a little bit tighter and knew that Caryssa did not trust him. So Sansa was hesitant to as well.

“Sansa dear, this is Lord Baelish. He was at your sister’s wedding.” Septa Mordane informed her, and Caryssa faked a smile for the man.

“And what a beautiful bride she made. I hope married life is to your liking, Lady Lannister?” Baelish inquired, and Caryssa nodded, though she had no real desire to talk to Littlefinger about her marriage.

“It’s been an enlightening experience. Jaime has been very kind to me,” Caryssa answered honestly, as he sat beside her, smiling that odd smile that unnerved her. She turned her head to face Sansa. “Lord Baelish is an old friend of mother’s when she was still living at Riverrun.”

“Yes, I’ve known your mother a long, long time.” Baelish added, smiling at the two girls who reminded him so much of his unrequited love. 

Sansa was Catelyn in body, but that stubbornness and polite courtesy in Caryssa did not simply come from the Starks. He knew the she-wolf did not trust him, not yet, but he could sway her. Her blue eyes were precisely the same shade as her mothers, enough that if her hair was colored red, he could be looking at a young Catelyn. The world talked about Caryssa because of how similar to her deceased aunt she looked, but Petyr could see her likeness to Catelyn, in the way she held herself, her eyes and the curve of her mouth. The She-Wolf of the North was not hundred percent Stark, as she liked to believe. She was equal parts Tully too.

“Why do they call you Littlefinger?” Arya questioned, much to the shock of Sansa and her septa. Baelish could see that the new Lady of Lannister was not surprised by her youngest sister’s curiosity, sighing to herself and he could see that she was resisting the urge to roll her eyes. 

“Don’t be rude!” The girl’s septa scolded, but Caryssa was surprised when Baelish simply chuckled. 

“No, it’s quite all right,” Lord Baelish stated, and turned his body so it was more angled towards the four women. “When I was a child, I was very small, and I come from a little spit of land called the Fingers, so you see, it’s an exceedingly clever nickname. Almost as clever as the Beauty of the North is to describe a beautiful Northern lady.”

“Have you placed a bet on today’s tourney, Lord Baelish?” Caryssa questioned, ignoring the unpleasant shiver she had suffered from his attempt at flattery. 

“No, my lady. I have learned my lesson when it comes to gambling, but I am certain that your lord husband will most likely win. He normally does when the king allows him to compete. Did you give him your favor?”

“He is my husband, Lord Baelish. It would not be appropriate to give my favor to any of the other knights.”

“No, I suppose-” Caryssa was almost thankful for the King’s next drunken outburst, though she could see that the Queen certainly wasn’t, when it cut off whatever Lord Baelish was going to say next. 

“I’ve been sitting here for days!” King Robert bellowed, still clutching the ivory drinking horn in hand. “Start the damn joust before I piss myself!”

Caryssa did not blame Cersei when she rose from her seat and disappeared, a stone-faced expression still unable to hide her displeasure at her husband’s antics, as she knew that if Jaime ever dared to embarrass her in such a way, she would probably ban him from her body for weeks.

The crowds still cheered at his words however, especially when the first two knights to joust appeared. Baelish noticed that the Stark girls all seemed to be transfixed at whoever was riding towards the king from behind him, and turned his head to see who it could be. 

Dark heavy armor cladded the knight atop a dark horse, and Baelish knew who it was in an instant. 

“Gods, who’s that?” Sansa questioned, unable to comprehend how that poor horse was able to seat so big a man. The man was monstrous in size. Almost like a mountain, Caryssa thought. 

“Ser Gregor Clegane. They call him the Mountain,” Caryssa’s lips curved up into a slight smile at her thoughts being reality. Clegane. The name was familiar to her, but she could not remember why. She knew it was one of the Houses of Westeros, but she felt it was more familiar than that. “The Hound’s older brother.”

“And his opponent?” Caryssa asked, and Littlefinger quickly obliged her with an answer. 

“Ser Hugh of the Vale. He was Jon Arryn’s squire. Look how far he’s come.” Littlefinger informed her, a smirk on his lips that led her to believe that there was more to Ser Hugh of the Vale than she knew, particularly about how he had been knighted from a lowly squire. 

She pondered the thought, barely listening to the King as he told them to ‘have at him’.

The two riders turned away from each other, riding to their posts to the sound of fanfare. Their squires handed them their lances and shields depicting their houses, and Caryssa suddenly felt ill at ease, which only grew as the jousters charged at each other. 

The first encounter between the two knights was nothing all that thrilling, though the Mountain came closest to hitting Ser Hugh.

The second charge…Caryssa’s hand gripped Sansa’s tightly, her eyes widened in shock. Sansa had screamed slightly in horror, while the rest of the crowd gasped in surprise. The Mountain and Ser Hugh had rode towards each other, but the Mountain stabbed his lance into Ser Hugh’s neck, the wood splintering off and forcing the newly-made knight off of his horse. 

The knight from the Vale lay on the ground, helplessly, as he choked on his own blood, drowning in it. 

Caryssa kept a cold mask of indifference, knowing that she was being inspected by Baelish and others, finding comfort in her sister’s hand squeezing hers and the sight of Jory on the other side of the tourney grounds. Sansa had paled at the sight of the dead knight, while Arya had seemed oddly fascinated but still shocked, and Baelish noticed the tightness of the new Lady Lannister’s jaw, as he leaned in to talk to her once more.

“Not what you were expecting? Has anyone told you the story of the Mountain and the Hound?” Caryssa and Sansa both shook their heads, both of them turning their heads slightly to gaze back at Joffrey’s guard, the man with the scarred face. “Lovely little tale of brotherly love.”

Caryssa forced herself to stare at the muddied ground below the stands, not wanting the Hound to catch them staring, noticing that Arya and Septa Mordane were now listening to Baelish’s tale.

“The Hound was just a pup, six years old maybe. Gregor a few years older, already a big lad, already getting a bit of a reputation. Some lucky boys just born with a talent for violence,” Baelish’s breath was hot on her neck, a testament to how close he believed he could get to her. Caryssa strongly resisted the urge to roll her eyes. ‘Lucky boys just born with a talent for violence’? Violent was not something that one should relish in being. “One evening, Gregor found his little brother playing with a toy by the fire – Gregor’s toy, a wooden knight. Gregor never said a word, he just grabbed his brother by the scruff of his neck and shoved his face into the burning coals. Held him there while the boy screamed, while his face melted. There aren’t many people who know that story.”

“I won’t tell anyone. I promise. Ryssa won’t either.” Sansa murmured, and Caryssa resisted the childish urge to tell Baelish that she wouldn’t keep the story to herself, but common sense had her bite her tongue. She knew that Baelish was not a man to openly cross. He had spies everywhere, Jaime had told her, and he knew as many secrets as the Spider, Lord Varys. He was also clever enough to have her own mother under his thumb, and perhaps her father too, but she would not be so easily fooled. 

Baelish was not someone to trust, nor would she want him to be on the opposing side. For now, she would continue to play him, as he was attempting to play her and her little sister. 

“No, please don’t. If the Hound so much as heard you mention it, I’m afraid all the knights in King’s Landing would not be able to save you.” 

The rest of that day’s tournament went by in a blur. Caryssa found herself barely paying attention to the jousts, clapping mindlessly with every victory, managing to gasp if a knight was injured or killed as brutally as Ser Hugh had been. 

Her mind had been suddenly overcome with unpleasant thoughts; Lord Baelish and his dark words to Sansa, her mother and her temper getting herself into trouble on the road, her father and his curiosity…Once a thought entered her mind, she found it a hard battle to remove it. 

She knew King’s Landing to be a dangerous place. The game the lords and ladies played here was a deadly one, one that Caryssa was hesitantly dipping her toes into. She had not wanted to be here, but now she was and had little choice in the matter. Her mother’s words were Family, Duty, Honor, so she was had no choice but to stay at her husband’s side. Not unless her family needed her. Family came first, duty second and honor last. She did not want anything to happen to her father or sisters, and she would strive to make sure that it didn’t, but Baelish’s words had her tense.

Lord Tyrion, her good-brother, should be on his way out of the North by now, possibly near Riverrun, coinciding with her mother’s should-be whereabouts. This thought had Caryssa praying to all seven gods. She hoped her mother would be able to keep her temper, to think about what the consequences would be should she act rashly. The last thing Westeros needed was another war.

She knew that her father was doing some investigations into the last Hand’s death and she was inwardly terrified, both by what he might discover and what it would lead to. She knew the people here. Murder and lies and secrets were not below any of them, perhaps not even Jaime, and she could only imagine the great lengths the corrupt would go to keep their wrongs buried. Caryssa did not want her father to get hurt, or for his actions to cause a war, because his curiosity and honor could not keep him from unearthing truths that people wanted to remain in the dark. 

It was only when Sansa nudged her was she pulled away from her panicked thoughts and back to the tournament. Caryssa focused on the sight in front of her and saw a sight that brought a smile to her face. 

Jaime sat upon a white steed, in magnificent red and black armor, the lion emblazoned in gold upon his chest. He was not competing for the King or the crown, but for House Lannister and, despite her hatred and imbedded mistrust of all things Lannister (always forgetting that she was technically part of that family now), Caryssa found herself smiling more widely. 

“Look, Ryssa! Your direwolf pin is tacked onto Ser Jaime’s saddle!” Arya beamed at her, and Caryssa chuckled, happy to feel Baelish bristling beside her in quiet annoyance. 

Caryssa tuned out Sansa’s girlish giggling about how romantic it was for Jaime to so openly display his love for his she-wolf and focused on her husband’s opposition. He was a Kettleblack, she hadn’t heard which, but he looked intimidating in his armor and wondered if he would pose a threat to Jaime. She did not love her husband, nor did she fully trust him, but she would not wish him hurt, especially after he had been so kind to her the past couple of weeks.

“Ryssa, he’s coming this way.”

“Who?” Caryssa questioned, not taking her eyes off of Jaime’s opponent.

“My sweet little wife, might I trouble you for a good luck kiss?” Caryssa rolled her eyes as she turned her eyes forward, and arched a brow at her husband as he moved his horse as close to the stands as possible, his helmet tucked underneath his arm as he gazed at her in amusement. 

“I gave you my favor, husband. Is that not good luck enough?” She asked, biting back a whelp as Sansa pinched her in the side and did her very best not to yell at her little sister. She was also trying to ignore the whispering behind her from other lords and ladies, all but tuning out their hushed voices as she put her focus on Jaime.

“Perhaps your husband needs all the luck he can get, my lady.” Baelish suggested snidely, and Caryssa rose to her feet, brushing imaginary specks of dirt off of her skirt, before taking a couple steps to the banister of the stand.

“I don’t think so, but I suppose there is no harm in having luck to spare,” Caryssa smirked, leaning towards her husband and pressing her lips firmly to his. It was a brief kiss, for dignity’s sake, but it seemed to please Jaime all the same. “There. Good luck, Ser Jaime.”

Jaime nodded, a smirk on his face, before he rode off to his starting position. The king had stopped all the ‘pomp’, preferring all action to start as quickly as possible, so Jaime and the Kettleblack man moved to their appropriate sides, both fully armored now.

Once the fanfare died down, they charged.

Caryssa’s heart thundered in her chest as the Kettleblack man tried to thrust his lance at Jaime’s neck, probably hoping to accomplish an end like Ser Hugh’s, but he missed. The Lannister lion, however, did not. Jaime’s lance hit his opponent straight in the chest, sending the man flying off of his horse and into the dirt. 

All three Stark girls rose to their feet to applaud Jaime’s quick victory, and Caryssa could picture the satisfied smugness that would be hidden underneath his helmet. She felt this warm feeling in her chest and, for a moment, struggled to place it until she tried to think of other times she had felt like this.

When she had helped Robb to walk for the first time. The time that Jon first beat Theon in a duel at training. When Sansa had stayed in the birthing chamber with her and the Septa to see little Rickon born. The first time Arya hit a bull’s-eye with the bow. When Bran climbed for the first time and didn’t hurt himself. When Rickon’s first word was ‘Ryssa’. Anytime she had seen her father with his men and the devotion they had for him. The time her mother pushed aside her jealousy and hatred and looked after Jon when he was sick as a young boy.

It was pride, she realized. She was proud of her husband and his win.

She shook her head, not noticing that Baelish was scrutinizing her closely, watching her smile tighten at the corners of her mouth, and her eyes gloss over the way Catelyn’s always did when she was in deep thought. 

In a matter of moments, Caryssa had become deeply concerned. Her father, her uncles, her mother, practically all the adults that she knew and loved and trusted, had always told her as she grew to never trust a Lannister. 

Deep down, Caryssa knew that she could say truthfully that she did not trust Cersei, not one bit, nor her eldest offspring. Myrcella and Tommen seemed harmless, but Joffrey was something else entirely. Caryssa did not know Tywin, but the stories were enough. She would never like her goodfather, nor trust him. Tyrion was a grey area. She definitely liked him. He was witty and kind and liked it when she spoke her mind, and even though he was a Lannister, he had kept his promise to look after Jon at the Wall.

With Jaime, however, it should have been clear cut and defined. He was her husband, but it was not a marriage born from love. It was a political marriage. A way to guarantee her safety in King’s Landing. She should not like him or trust him, because he was the Queen’s brother, the one Cersei actually liked, and because he was a man without honor. 

Yet, she did trust him and she did like him, without her even realizing it. Somehow, Caryssa knew that this would not bode well for her.

Never trust a Lannister, she thought, but now I am one. The gods certainly do have a strange sense of humor.

Caryssa watched her husband take off his helmet, shaking out his golden hair, before his eyes connected with hers, and she found her smile widening when he grinned back at her. 

Gods, was she in trouble.


	14. A Pleasant Interlude

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "The gods envy us.  
> They envy us because we are mortal,  
> because any moment may be our last.  
> Everything is more beautiful because we are doomed.  
> You will never be lovelier than you are now.  
> We will never be here again."
> 
> \- Homer

Caryssa was awake earlier than usual. So early it must have been still dark outside.

She knew this because Jaime had yet to wake, and, after struggling to escape his arms, Caryssa was gazing at him as he slept. The she-wolf was soaking in all the little details of his face; the gentle creases in his forehead, the light beauty mark beneath his eye, the bumps on the ridge of his nose where it had been broken once or twice before. 

From afar, Ser Jaime, the golden lion of Lannister, looked like the perfect man with his light golden hair, sparkling green eyes, sun-kissed skin and the white and gold armor of the Kingsguard, but up close you could see the effects that time had worn into his skin. It was not so noticeable, time had been kinder to him than it had been to other men his age, but being as close as she was she could see the slight crinkling around his eyes.

It reminded her once more of the age gap between them. She had reached her nineteenth year several moons ago, and Jaime had to be at least thirty six. There were seventeen years between them, though that was not unusual. Many lords desired young brides. Lord Walder Frey was the most ridiculous example that sprung to mind, being no younger than Caryssa’s grandfather with a young wife maybe a few years younger than she was. Thinking of it that way, Caryssa mused that she had a lucky escape in marrying Ser Jaime. 

After all, it could have been much, much worse.

Then again, Caryssa supposed it could have been better. She could have married for love, married a Northman and stayed close to the rest of her family in Winterfell. 

Winterfell. The new Lady of Lannister let out a quiet sigh at the thought of home. 

She had not heard from Robb for nearly a week now. He had sent her a letter that she had received the day after her wedding, congratulating her on her marriage, threatening her new husband if he hurt her and lamenting her absence from Winterfell all at once. 

She was not alone in feeling his absence so keenly. 

Caryssa could freely admit that she still felt lost without her baby brother with her, especially now that she were married.

From the day he had come screaming into the world, he had given her a purpose. As his elder sister, it was her responsibility to care for him, to guide him and protect him in everything he did. Caryssa had made it her life’s mission to make sure her siblings were safe, happy and healthy and now she was at a loss as to what to do with herself.

Back in Winterfell, she would plan her day around her siblings’ own schedules. She would rise early to go and pray in the Godswoods, before she would make sure that the youngest Stark children were up and ready to break fast with everyone. Then she would attend lessons with Sansa and Arya to make sure they were behaved and to keep her needlepoint skills sharp. After that she would train with Jory and her brothers, before learning how to be the lady of a keep.

Whatever free time she had was spent with Robb, Jon, Sansa, Arya, Bran and Rickon (and Greyjoy, though that was not by her choice), and now she only had her two sisters and her handmaiden. While she loved Sansa and Arya, they did not understand the responsibilities she had, nor the burdens. She could not talk to the two young girls about them and she didn’t want to bother her father. She wished she had her mother or Robb or Jon to speak to, or even Maester Luwin. 

She was not sure she could be play the part of a docile lady-wife. She was not sure she wanted to, but it was too late. Marriage had its benefits, yes, like their bedroom antics and the weight and fear behind the title ‘Kingslayer’s wife’. A guard of the citadel had been rude to her the day before when she was walking through the gardens with Rhaenyra and all it took to have him an apologetic mess was to tell him her name. 

I am Lady Caryssa Lannister, ser. I think it best you give your apologies to me now before I mention this to my husband.

She was a she-wolf. She fought her own battles, verbal or otherwise, but she found that being Kingslayer’s wife meant she did not have to engage in such things. The she-wolf was not so sure that she liked it.

“Stop thinking so loud, go back to sleep.” Jaime murmured, and Caryssa chuckled quietly.

“I was not thinking at all. It is too early for such things.”

“Yes, it is, so sleep.”

“I am no longer tired. If you released me, I could go not think elsewhere and stop disturbing you,” Caryssa replied, making a point of wriggling in his embrace, but his arms only tightened around her. She huffed in response, before a mischievous smile spread across her lips. “I could make you let me go.”

Jaime’s eyes flickered for a moment before opening, narrowing almost immediately.

“I hope you don’t mean that knife you keep under your pillow.”

“If I wanted to kill you, Lannister, I would have done it before you took my maidenhead, so I wouldn’t have brought shame upon my family.”

“So how exactly do you plan to escape my evil clutches then, little wife?” Jaime questioned, and Caryssa said nothing in return.

Instead, she pressed her lips to his roughly, sucking his bottom lip into her mouth before tugging on it with her teeth. Caryssa pushed him onto his back, only struggling slightly with his arms still tight around her, and moaned when she felt his hardness beneath her. Jaime’s mouth moved against hers, his arms loosening around her and slipping down her sides to grip her hips and grind her against his arousal. 

Pulling away from his mouth, Caryssa moved her lips to his neck; kissing, nipping and sucking the skin there while her hands moved to his, entwining their fingers and pushing his hands into the pillow underneath his head, one on each side of his face. 

Caryssa smirked as she abandoned her teasing, hovering over him, but no longer touching him anywhere.

“Looks like I am free.” She murmured.

Seconds later, she knew she had spoken too soon.

Jaime broke free of her hands and flipped Caryssa onto her back, pinning her to the bed with his body, both of them groaning simultaneously when his throbbing manhood pressed against her heat. She was wet. She knew she was, but she found it too hard to care when her husband was rubbing against her, teasing her.

Jaime buried his face into Caryssa’s pale neck, using it to muffle his groan as he filled her. He felt her teeth biting down on his shoulder as he snapped his hips against hers once, growling at the brief, but sharp, pain of it. He should have known that the she-wolf of Winterfell was an almost literal description of his wife. She was a wolf in their bed; biting, nipping and howling through the act. 

Caryssa rested her hands on his shoulders, trying to give herself some leverage as she tried to copy the pace Jaime was setting, bucking her hips against his. She found she was being more aggressive that morning, needing to shut off her mind, needing to forget all the bad thoughts swirling around her head. If Jaime noticed, he did not say anything. 

It was a clear battle for dominance between the couple; their kisses were hard and rough, demanding and controlling, both trying to take rather than give, but neither minded much at all. It was almost animalistic, the way they moved together. The lion and the she-wolf. An odd match.

Her husband reached between their bodies, stroking Caryssa felt that rush of pleasure overtake her, and Jaime still rutting against her until he followed her over the precipice of pleasure. Caryssa laughed breathlessly as her golden lion collapsed on top of her, his face burying itself between her breasts, trying to recapture his own breath. 

“I could get used to waking up to this,” Jaime muttered, pressing his lips to her breast, before he moved from top of her, falling to his back and pulling her into his side. Caryssa wrapped an arm around his torso, nuzzling his neck, as she got comfortable again. “Now sleep. I have a tournament to win.”

“When you win, you won’t give me that silly flower crown, will you?”

“The flower garland for the Queen of Love and Beauty? I do believe your father would have my head if I gave it to anyone else.”

“Well, give it to Sansa. She is the one who longs for the songs to be true, for knights and fair maidens and grand romantic gestures. I am content to just revel with you in your victory.”

“You are so sure that I will win?”

“Of course. All the talk says that you are the greatest knight in all the seven kingdoms. Besides, you said it yourself, you have a tournament to win,” Caryssa stated, tilting her head back so she could gaze up at him and rubbing his side in a comforting fashion. “Now, hush. No more talk. We must sleep. I have to look my best when my husband wins the tourney.”

“I’ll endeavor to do my best to please you.”

Caryssa sighed. She truly did not care who won the tourney, but she knew that Jaime did. All the men still competing in the tourney cared almost too much about winning. It was silly the importance that men placed on valor and small victories. Family and honor were more valuable to her, and sometimes she couldn’t understand why others did not feel the same. 

The Lannister family prized power and position, something she knew very well. House Stark was one of the largest families in Westeros, highly respected and powerful, and she knew that was one of the reasons that Tywin Lannister had agreed to the match the king proposed between his son and her. 

“If it pleases you to win, then I will be pleased,” Caryssa corrected, snuggling back into his arms. “Since that is my duty as your wife. As your sister likes to remind me every time I see her.”

“She is protective of me.”

“Well, I believe that is one thing we have in common. That undying concern for our younger brothers. I’d kill for Robb. Cersei has alluded to me that she would do the same.”

“She threatened you?”

“In not so many words.”

Cersei and Caryssa were overlooking the sea. The Queen had invited the young she-wolf to walk with her through the gardens and they had ended at the overlook, the dark water of Blackwater lapping at the rocks, and Caryssa was waiting for the lioness to reveal the true reason behind their meeting. 

It was a couple more days to her wedding and both women were incredibly busy with the last of the preparations, so the Stark woman was rather confused as to what the Lannister queen could possibly want from her. 

“In two days, you will be married to my brother. I did not agree to the match, but my husband and my father both insisted. Jaime does not seem unpleased by the match either,” Cersei started, and Caryssa simply stared out at the water, refusing to show any sort of emotional response to the other woman’s words. “My brother deserves better than some unruly Northern girl who plays at being a soldier. You carry a sword and practice with a bow. You forget your place in this world.”

“I know my place in this world. I am a woman, like any other, but when my times comes, I will not accept a harsh and painful fate like other women. If there is one thing to be learned from the rebellion, Your Grace, it is that while it is not appropriate for a woman to wield a sword, she can still die upon one. The Martell’s know that better than any,” Caryssa turned her head to catch the signature Lannister green eyes she saw in Jaime and Tyrion. Cersei’s were still as cold as the first time she had seen them however. “What happened to Elia Martell, what happened to my aunt…that will not be my fate.”

Cersei chuckled at her, and Caryssa cast her eyes away from the snickering woman, masking her anger beneath the mask she often affected now. 

“Our fates do not belong to us. I remember being your age and wanting to marry the Prince. Instead, my father married me off to a King, a man who was already in love with another woman. A ghost. Do you believe that this is the fate I would have chosen?”

“No.”

“My brother wouldn’t have chosen you if he had the choice. You are going to be the perfect bride for him, aren’t you? You are going to make him as happy as you can, bear his children and give up this ‘woman warrior’ nonsense,” Cersei stated, and Caryssa said nothing, making no promise and showing no sign that she had acknowledge the queen’s words. “My family is the most important thing to me, Lady Stark, and people often underestimate exactly what I would do to those who would hurt them; physically, mentally or emotionally. Do you understand?”

“I do.”

“She more wanted to make sure that I kept you happy. After all, what more could a sister want for her brother than happiness?”

Caryssa truly believed that if she did make Jaime unhappy, if she did not give him children or displeased him in any way, Cersei would have her head on a spike along the walls of the Keep or she would be locked in the Black Cells in the dungeons until the day she died.

“I am quite content with how things are going so far in this marriage of ours. I am not unhappy.”

The she-wolf held in a sigh, and made a noise of agreement, staring across from her at her vanity table.

She was not unhappy either. Caryssa find herself quite the opposite of unhappy, and she was almost certain that it was a problem. 

Because Jaime Lannister, son of Tywin Lannister, made her, Caryssa Stark, daughter of Eddard Stark, happy and she knew that it was only a matter of time before it was proved to be a mistake. 

There was a storm coming. She could feel it in her bones. She did not know what destruction would occur when it finally hit.


	15. At Tourney's End

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "She's the girl ablaze;  
> Her kiss burns like whiskey,  
> Her touch trails fire,  
> Her eyes burn brighter than city lights.
> 
> She's the girl ablaze;  
> Who flames like the sun,  
> The moon and the stars,  
> She will ignite."  
> -Unknown

Kings Landing

The soft breeze ruffled the soft yellow silk and lace of Caryssa’s skirt around her legs as she sat with her father, Sansa and Septa Mordane and watched the tourney. It was the very first tilt of the day, but they had yet to see who would be competing. Jaime had her favor again, though today wore a silver-grey handkerchief with the Stark sigil tied around the armor on his arm. He had returned her direwolf pin to her as he (and inwardly she thought so too) didn’t want to test his luck with it further and get it damaged.

“That is a pretty dress. Don’t think I’ve seen that one.” Ned murmured to his daughter, and Caryssa smiled at him, eyes twinkling with something akin to mischief as she glanced down at the light yellow gown. It was adorned with small gold and brown leaves along the bust and in a pattern down the bodice and skirt, as well as the sleeves. It was just one of many dresses that she had received from her husband over the last week. Most of them had been red, but there were a few yellow, gold and blue ones thrown in too. 

‘Technically, you are the Lady of the Rock, so it’s time you started dressing the part. Or my father and sister will have my head.’ Jaime had said, narrowing his eyes when Caryssa had rolled hers. 

“My husband had the royal seamstress make me nearly an entire new wardrobe. Most likely the Queen’s idea to remind me that I’m a Stark no longer.”

“You’ll always be a Stark.”

Caryssa grinned, gripping his hand in hers and leaning her head against his shoulder, ignoring the eyes searing holes into the back of her head. She had felt rather than seen Lord Baelish as he had taken the seat just behind theirs, with Lord Renly just behind him. The she-wolf had gathered it was some strategic move on his part, being close to her and Sansa in order to whisper his lies and try to charm them with his silver tongue for whatever his reasons.

“Where’s Arya?” Ned then asked his two daughters, his eyes searching for the little she-wolf around the tourney field. 

“At her dancing lessons.” Sansa replied, her eyes not leaving the tourney field as the first competitor made himself known.

The Mountain still dwarfed his horse, his armor cleaned of the blood spray that had splattered across the dark steel after he had defeated Ser Hugh a few days prior. He bowed his head towards the king, but Caryssa’s eyes were narrowed in on his opponent.

“The Knight of the Flowers.” Sansa murmured in childish awe as she gazed upon the handsome knight as he rode towards the stands with two roses in his hand.

Caryssa smiled politely as he came near to her and Sansa, taking the offered rose carefully from him and murmuring her thanks as Sansa did the same. She noticed however his eyes flickered upwards and behind her, to Lord Renly and Caryssa’s smile grew wider.

Ser Loras Tyrell smirked before riding to present himself before the king, giving a low bow. The She-Wolf narrowed her eyes when the Mountain’s stallion seemed to lose focus so close to the Tyrell lord’s mare, but they were moving away from each other before she could draw any conclusions. The crowd jeered at Ser Gregor and cheered for Ser Loras, the two sounds mixing with the grunts and whinny’s of their horses. Their squires handed them their lances and, in Ser Loras’ case, helms, and Caryssa could feel Sansa tensing beside her.

“Don’t let Ser Gregor hurt him.” She whispered loud enough for their father to hear, looping her arm through Caryssa’s and edging closer to the comfort of her elder sibling.

“Hey.” Ned said, reaching around Caryssa and resting his hand on Sansa’s shoulder, giving it a gentle squeeze for fatherly reassurance.

“I can’t watch.” Sansa breathed, her fingers tightening around her sister’s arm, causing Caryssa to grit her teeth and grab Sansa’s hand to relieve some of the pressure. 

Behind her she could hear Littlefinger and Lord Renly making bets, and taunting each other. The she-wolf had to hide her grin when Renly told Baelish that with a hundred gold dragons he could buy himself a friend, but only because her sister was so concerned for the Tyrell knight.

“He’s going to die.”

“Ser Loras rides well.” Ned informed Sansa, trying to assuage her fears.

Caryssa watched avidly, hearing the fanfare go off, signaling the beginning of the joust. The Mountain’s stallion was still fidgeting restlessly, whereas Ser Loras’ horse was perfectly at ease. She was starting to get a clearer idea as to why that was.

The two knights pushed their horses into a gallop, lances at the ready, helms hiding their faces.

After Ser Hugh’s untimely death, Caryssa understood why Sansa was so worried for the Knight of the Flowers. Her own mind was flashing back to the dark images of Ser Hugh choking on his own blood, replacing his face with Ser Loras’ instead. 

Yet, that’s not what happened.

When the two knights met in the middle of the tourney field, Ser Loras’ lance splintered Ser Gregor’s shield, knocking him and his horse back before galloping away as the victor. Some in attendance gasped in surprise, probably as sure as Sansa had been that Ser Loras would be the one to be defeated, while others laughed at Ser Gregor’s hulking mass as it was flung to the ground. Caryssa knew she heard Lord Renly’s chuckles of delight, having won himself a hundred gold dragons, and she found satisfaction in the fact that Baelish had been silenced. 

“Such a shame, Littlefinger. It would have been so nice for you to have a friend.” Caryssa heard Lord Renly taunt the Master of Coin, and saw an opportunity too good to let pass, even if it meant making an enemy of one Baratheon. 

“I’m sorry to disappoint you, Lord Renly, but Lord Baelish has a friend in me, at the very least,” Caryssa turned her head to smile at the two men. She looked down at her rose and held it towards the king’s brother. With a hint of confusion, he took it and she explained. “I believe your friend meant to give this to you, my lord.”

Seeing Baelish’s wicked grin, Caryssa knew that she had him or he was at least playing along with her charade, though Lord Renly took her jest as sincere and smiled at her, even if his eyes were begging her not to say anything before flickering to the victor.

Baelish took his seat again, though he leaned forward to whisper to the two Stark girls. He still couldn’t consider the Lady Caryssa a Lannister, even if they had been married near to two weeks now. 

“Loras knew his mare was in heat. Quite crafty, really.” 

“Ser Loras would never do that. There’s no honor in tricks.” Sansa replied, as all three Starks turned their heads to look at Littlefinger.

“No honor and quite a bit of gold.”

Caryssa’s attention was stolen from Baelish, much to his disappointment, when Ser Gregor finally rose to his feet, tugging off his helmet and tossing it angrily to the ground, yelling out to his squire for his sword. The She-Wolf felt her brows knit together as she tried to work out why he would need his sword, because surely the knight would not attack Ser Loras for winning. There was no honor in being ungracious in defeat. 

His squire raced towards him with the heavy two-handed blade, much like her family’s ancestral sword, Ice, while the Tyrell knight presented himself in his victory in front of the King and his children. Much to her horror, Caryssa found she could not pull her eyes away as the Mountain beheaded his horse. She could not make sense of such mindless killing. 

She grabbed her father’s hand, and gripped it tight, just as Sansa was doing to her own as Ser Gregor advanced on Ser Loras and used his great sword to knock the knight off of his horse. Ser Loras hit the ground hard but managed to recover enough to hold up his shield in his defense when Clegane tried to clove him in two.

Caryssa pushed herself up onto her feet and looked towards the Kingsguard.

“Someone do something! He’ll be killed!” She implored, her eye catching that of the Hound’s just as he moved to act.

He drew his sword, leapt from the stands and growled at his brother as he came to the Tyrell knight’s defense.

“Leave him be!” Sandor ordered, as their swords clashed together and he forced them apart. 

Ned pulled Caryssa down to her seat, curling an arm around her as she did the same to Sansa, all of them staring at the scene in front of them as the two Cleganes began to fight. She noticed that the Hound seemed to fare well against the Mountain’s heavy blows and proved to be a good swordsman when he wasn’t chasing down the butcher’s boy or being Joffrey’s dog. 

Caryssa turned her head back to watch the king, their blue eyes connecting and she saw a moment of blood lust. She had seen it before in a man’s eyes, mostly from the murderers about to be executed by her father and she was disappointed that King Robert almost wanted it to continue.

She tore her eyes from his and refocused on the fight, seeing the Hound quickly blocking another would-be death blow from his own brother.

“Stop this madness in the name of your King!” She heard King Robert cry and a small smile spread across her lips, evaporating just as quickly when the Hound narrowly avoided being beheaded by the Mountain’s sword when he immediately dropped to one knee by order of his king. 

The Mountain stayed on his feet, angrily throwing his sword to the ground before he stormed off, the crowd separating for him to avoid his ire. Caryssa suddenly felt her heart beating rapidly and shared a worried glance with her father, wondering if it was such a good idea to let Ser Gregor just leave.

Ser Loras approached the Hound and lifted his arm into the air for his victory against his brother and the crowd cheered and applauded the two men. 

Caryssa saw how uncomfortable the celebration had made him, so remained seated when most rose to their feet to clap and holler. 

The sight of the two Clegane men fighting had an uneasy feeling spread through her. Brother against brother in a battle, fighting to kill. 

It almost felt like another omen, like when she had found the fallen stag killed by the she-wolf who then died after whelping the pups. 

She shook away the disturbing thoughts, rising to her feet and joining the applause if only to take her mind off of the path her mind had decided to wander down.

~*~

Winterfell

Bran watched wistfully as Theon practiced his archery, the sound of each arrow cutting through the air and sinking into the target distracting him from his lessons with Maester Luwin. He longed for his lessons with Robb and Jon and Ryssa, before their family had separated. Before he had been the Cripple of Winterfell. 

He still had Robb, Rickon and Theon, but he was supposed to have his mother too. She was supposed to be there when he woke up, but she wasn’t. She wasn’t even in Winterfell. He toyed with the small pewter trout in his hands; the sigil of his mother’s house. Why wasn’t she here?

The tap of Maester Luwin’s stick pulled him back to the map of Westeros on the table, and he stared sullenly down at it, seeing where his teacher had pointed.

“The Iron Islands. Sigil – a kraken. Words – ‘We do not sow’.” Bran recited, his voice as dull as the lesson he was being forced to endure.

“Lords?” Maester Luwin pressed.

“The Greyjoys.”

“Famed for their skills at archery, navigation and lovemaking.” Theon added, with a cheeky grin that failed to make Bran smile.

“And failed rebellions.” Luwin retorted, though Theon had turned back to his archery, and rapped his stick onto another part of the map, on the eastern side this time.

“Sigil – a stag, a crowned stag now that Robert’s king.”

“Good.” The Maester praised his charge, watching him play with the little trout figure in his hands.

“Words – ‘Ours is the fury’. Lords – the Baratheons,” Bran’s eyes flickered the west of the map where Luwin pointed his stick and his jaw clenched slightly. “The Westerlands. Sigil – a lion. Words – ‘A Lannister always pays his debts’.”

“No. A common saying, but not their official motto.”

“Lords – the Lannisters.” Bran continued, ignoring Maester Luwin’s corrections, as his eyes were once again drawn to the sight of arrows thunking into the wooden target.

“We’re still on their words.” Maester Luwin pushed, and Bran stared at the table in front of him, digging the sharp edge of the trout into the wood.

“I don’t know them.”

“You do know them. Think.”

“‘Unbowed, unbent, unbroken’.” Bran murmured, and Maester Luwin shook his head once, seeming to understand that the boy was purposefully being difficult now, but tried nonetheless to get his lesson back on track.

“That’s House Martell.”

“‘Righteous in wrath’.”

“House Hornwood.”

“‘Family, duty, honour’.” Bran all but sneered the words. Caryssa liked to use those words when any of their siblings were fighting, particularly to Sansa and Arya. Family comes first, little wolves. Never forget that. She would say that, and then make them promise to try to get along better. Sansa and Arya would try, but an hour later they’d be arguing again. 

“Those are Tully words – your mother’s. Are we playing a game?” Maester Luwin questioned him, and Bran didn’t look up at him, simply continued to carve into the wood.

“Family, duty, honour…is that the right order?” Bran asked.

“You know it is. Your sister has told them to you enough that you would remember.”

“Family comes first?”

Maester Luwin finally understood why the boy was being unreasonable. He was angry at his mother. For leaving his side, for not being there when he woke, for still being gone days later, Maester Luwin did not know which was the most likely, but if he had to garner a guess it would be all three.

“Your mother had to leave Winterfell to protect the family.” The maester repeated his words from when Bran woke and realized his mother was not there.

“How can she protect the family if she’s not with her family?” Bran questioned, finally looking at his teacher who was gazing back at him with soft, sad, old eyes and a furrowed brow.

“Your mother sat by your bed for three weeks while you slept-“

“And then she left!” Bran snapped, and Maester Luwin decided to try another way to convince the boy of his mother’s love.

“When you were born, I was the one who pulled you from your mother. I placed you in her arms. From that moment until the moment she dies, she will love you. Absolutely. Fiercely.”

“Why did she leave?” Bran pushed the old man, and he sighed.

“I still can’t tell you but she will be home soon.” Luwin replied, hoping that would convince Bran to stop fretting and being angry at his mother. Lady Catelyn had not sent word back to them to tell them how the journey to King’s Landing had gone and whether or not her suspicions had been confirmed, but the maester assumed it would not be long before she returned to tell them in person.

“Do you know where she is now? Today?”

“No, I don’t.” Maester Luwin answered reluctantly, knowing that his honesty was only adding fuel to the boy’s fire, but he couldn’t bring himself to lie to the boy.

“Then how can you promise me she’ll be home soon?” Bran retaliated, and Maester Luwin smiled slightly, knowing that he had been bested, and shook his head.

“Sometimes I worry you’re too smart for your own good.” 

Bran brushed off the backhanded compliment from the man at his side, watching once more as Theon shot another arrow into the second ring of the target. He felt his anger bubbling up within him again, but pushed it down and settled for sadness instead. He was a cripple now. He would not become a knight or a member of the King’s Kingsguard. He would not fight in battles and earn glory for the Stark name. He wouldn’t swing a sword. He would never shoot another arrow. 

When he voiced the last of his upsetting thoughts, Maester Luwin was quick to ease his mind.

“And where is that written?” The old man questioned.

“You need legs to work a bow.” Bran stated, and the maester hummed in disagreement.

“If the saddle Lord Tyrion designed actually works, you could learn to shoot a bow from horseback.”

“Just like Ryssa on a hunt?” Bran asked, remembering all the times his sister had gone hunting with his father and brothers with her bow and would come back with deer and rabbits with her arrows in their eyes or hides. He missed her. He missed Father, Sansa and Arya too, but Caryssa wouldn’t have left his side if she had not been betrothed to Ser Jaime. She would have stayed with him until he woke. He did love his mother, but he was so angry at her for leaving when he needed her the most.

“Yes, if she were here, your sister could help you, but you’ll have to make do with your brother and Theon instead.”

“Really?”

“Dothraki boys learn when they’re four years old. Why shouldn’t you?” Maester Luwin informed him, finally bringing a smile to the little Lord’s face.

This time when Theon drew back the bowstring and his arrow whizzed forward to its target, Bran’s face did not sour. 

~*~

Kings Landing

Once the horror left behind in the Mountain’s wake had been cleared from the ground and the barrier had been fixed, the tourney continued for its final joust.

Caryssa saw her husband at one end of the tourney field fiddling with the handkerchief she had given as her favor, making sure that the direwolf was clearly displayed for her. She smiled at that, though she heard her father grumbling under his breath. He was still unhappy that she had been married, though it had been his decision in the first place, so she tried to placate him by gripping his hand a little tighter. 

The next thing she noticed was that Jaime had changed his horse. Throughout the tourney, Jaime had been riding a white stallion, but now he was seated on a black mare. Caryssa could not help the smirk that spread across her lips. Her husband was not a fool and had surmised the same thing as Baelish; that Ser Loras’ own mare was in heat and had distracted the Mountain’s stallion to his defeat. 

Jaime cut a significantly more intimidating figure now with his fierce black and crimson red armor and black mount, especially when compared to Ser Loras’ flowery silver armor and pretty white mare. It was this moment that made Caryssa almost glad that her father had chosen to marry her to the Lannister lion instead of the Tyrell rose. While she was satisfied in her marriage to Jaime, she could hope for happiness and perhaps even love one day with him. She could not foresee the same outcome from a marriage to Ser Loras, especially when his eyes continued to flicker towards Lord Renly behind her. She would not have found any happiness with a man that could not love her.

The two men rode towards the royal stands, bowing their heads towards their king and his family, before each riding to their starting positions and making their last preparations. Caryssa was glad that Jaime had not made a spectacle of them again by requesting another good luck kiss, because she was certain her father would not have found it remotely humorous or charming as she had done.

The fanfare signaled the beginning of the joust, and Caryssa found herself practically on the edge of her seat as she watched her husband and the Knight of the Flowers charge towards each other. When Ser Loras almost knocked Jaime from his horse, Caryssa’s grip on her father’s hand became iron tight, surprising Ned. He looked at her, but her eyes were fixed on the joust, excitement and worry warring for the dominant emotion on her face. 

Jaime recovered quickly, and on the second charge almost forced the Tyrell knight from his own mount. The two men were providing the crowd with a great show, gasps filling the tourney grounds whenever one knight nearly bested the other. 

It was the fifth charge when it finally came to an end.

Ser Jaime and Ser Loras rode towards each other, lances and shields at the ready, and the crowd all held their breath to see who would be the victor. Caryssa rose to her feet the moment she saw Loras Tyrell tumble from his mare and fall into the dirt, clapping for her husband with a wide smile. The rest of the tourney audience did the same as Jaime took a small victory lap, removing his helmet as he did so. He was wearing a smug grin that exuded the arrogance she associated with him, but she could also see the happiness there too.

Caryssa’s smile fell when she saw Jaime’s squire hand him the flower circlet and saw the mischievous grin on his face as their eyes connected. She shook her head once, as she and her family took their seats once more but he pushed his horse into a trot to ride towards her and she did her best not to scowl in front of the crowds. 

Jaime stopped in front of her, reached out his hand and placed the crown of roses in her lap. Winter roses, she noted. As blue as frost. She felt her father stiffen beside her, and she remembered why she had not wanted to be crowned the Queen of Love and Beauty in the first place. No doubt her father was remembering the tourney at Harrenhal all those years ago, when his own sister had been crowned with winter roses by Prince Rhaegar instead of the Prince’s own wife, Elia Martell. She supposed that at least Jaime had not made the same mistake, even if she had all but begged him to crown Sansa instead. Sansa would have appreciated it more than she did.

Reluctantly, she smiled and placed the circlet of blue roses on her head and even went so far as to kiss her husband for his victory. The crowd’s roaring cheers erupted around them, and Caryssa could not help the blush that warmed her cheeks at the very loud approval she received for her actions.

When she took her seat once more, Jaime having moved towards the royal stands to be announced the victor properly by the king, she did not look at her father.

She did not want to see that same look he sometimes gave her when he thought of his sister.

The look that said he was seeing a ghost.

~*~

Jaime was in very high spirits. He had won the tourney, crowned his wife the Queen of Love and Beauty and watched as the king squirmed before congratulating him on his victory. He had retired to his bedchambers with Caryssa, who had scolded him for going against her wishes by placing the flower crown on her lap, and had readied himself for the feast before her handmaiden had ushered him out of his own bedchamber to help his wife prepare herself.

He had gone ahead to the Great Hall, and was on his second cup of wine, when he realized that his wife still had not joined them. He looked around the hall and noticed that Lord Stark and his two daughters had come to the same realization. 

Daena had sworn that Caryssa would not be too long before she joined him, yet she was still not here and Jaime could not help the irritation and disappointment that bubbled up within him. They were supposed to be celebrating his victory.

“Finally! I thought you weren’t ever going to bloody show! The Queen of Love and Beauty has seen fit to grace us with her presence!” Jaime heard the King slur loudly, and his face snapped towards the entrance doors and a grin spread across the Lannister lion’s lips.

His wife was forgiven for her tardiness.

~*~

Caryssa restrained an eye roll at King Robert’s rather childish announcement of her arrival, but she knew that she somewhat deserved the embarrassment. She was incredibly late, even if it were not her fault. Daena had forced her in front of her vanity table and spent what felt like hours messing about with her hair and face, after forcing her into the gown she was wearing. Her hair braided twice at her temples, just underneath the crown she wore, weaved together until all four braids joined together at the back of her head and formed a larger braid that rested above the rest of her hair that had been left to cascade down her back. 

She had been tempted to wear one of the new red gowns Jaime had commissioned for her, but that plan had been dashed when he placed the winter rose crown on her lap. Blue and red clashed in a rather garish way. 

The dress the she-wolf wore instead made her feel more at home. It was made from pale blue silks and looked as though it was covered in white frost and large snowflakes along the sleeves, bodice and hem. Daena had told her that she looked like a winter queen, and Caryssa had laughed, even if she inwardly agreed with her. She would not have been able to wear such a dress in the North as it would have been too thin and flimsy for the harsh northern winds, but at the very least she felt like she belonged in a painting inside of one of the old tomes in the library at Winterfell about the old Kings and Queens in the North.

The compliment had worked in boosting Caryssa’s confidence, feeling that tenfold when she caught sight of her husband and his pleased grin. He was unashamedly trailing his eyes up and down her body, sending warmth pooling into her stomach and a slight blush to her cheeks. She could clearly see the desire in his eyes from across the hall though she tried to appear unaffected by it.

“Ryssa!” She heard Arya call to her, and she tore her eyes away from her husband to see the little wolf rushing towards her, having been forced into another dress, paying no mind to the lessons in propriety she had been taught by Septa Mordane. Sansa and her father approached her as well, though with more grace than Arya. 

“You look beautiful.” Her father complimented her, pressing a gentle kiss to her brow which made her smile. 

“Thank you, father,” She took in the dark grey surecoat he wore, one that she had made back in Winterfell, the silver direwolf proudly displayed on his left breast. Caryssa pressed her hand over it, running a finger along the familiar stitching she had toiled over for months to have it ready for her father’s namesday. “I haven’t seen this for an age.”

“It is one of my favorites. I wouldn’t want to ruin it.”

Caryssa smiled widely, before she glanced at Sansa, who was eyeing her with something akin to jealousy. She knew that Sansa had no reason to be jealous. With her flaming auburn hair and pretty blue eyes, the same shade as her own, Sansa was a beauty that even the southern women could not match. Hearing music pick up, Caryssa turned to her sister in excitement.

“Sansa, sweetling, dance with me?”

Sansa nodded, taking her sister’s outstretched hand and following her sister into the center of the room where many others had gathered to dance. Caryssa noted that it was mostly couples, but she and her siblings always danced together at feasts. It was just their way. 

The two she-wolves danced merrily with the other couples, the southern style of dance not unfamiliar to them as their mother had taught them all manner of dances being from the Riverlands and then the mother of Northern children. Even if they stumbled on steps, it did nothing to stop the laughter coming from the sisters as they enjoyed themselves. 

Caryssa felt freer than she had since she had left the North behind her as she danced with Sansa. If she focused on nothing but the steps and her little sister, she could almost pretend that she was back in Winterfell, at someone’s namesday feast, with no worries or cares and no games or politics to navigate. Just her home and her family and northern music. 

Gods, how she wished that her dreams were true. Marriage to Jaime was fine, but the Red Keep was no Winterfell and the Crownlands were not the North. She did not belong here and she still felt that knowledge resting heavily on her heart, even during such a fun occasion as her husband’s victory feast. Her whole being still ached for her home, for the Godswood and the Great Hall and her old chambers and the Healing Keep and the training grounds where she and her brothers spent most of their time together.

Every time she thought of home, that weight in her heart grew heavier still and the more she came to regret her father’s decision to marry her into House Lannister, which only made her feel guilty. Jaime had been nothing but kind to her, attentive and as close to loving as they both could manage.

But she had yet to let go of that fantasy of returning home to the North and until she did, she knew she would not be happy.

Still, the She-Wolf of the North twirled and spun to the music, laughing as she did so. Because even if she could not find more enjoyment in this new life of hers, outside of her shared bedchamber with her husband, she would pretend for her family’s sake. 

Eventually, the dance was over and a slower, more romantic song filled the air as a pair of arms wound around Caryssa’s waist. She looked over her shoulder as she and Sansa separated and saw Jaime smirking down at her, that lustful expression still in his eyes. 

Without a word, Jaime tugged Ryssa away from her sister, who went and found her father and sister, and pulled her into the circle of his arms. Caryssa gazed up at him with a soft smile, thinking that his emerald eyes were possibly warmer than the last time she had looked into them. She couldn’t fathom why, but she liked the change. 

They danced in time to the song, doing the appropriate lifts and turns, but always ending up with their bodies almost pressed together. Their closeness as they danced went against propriety, but Caryssa felt herself minding less and less as the song stretched on. 

When the song came to an end, Jaime took Caryssa’s hand and all but dragged her out of the hall, no one paying them much attention.

“Where are you taking me, husband?” Caryssa questioned, as she looked around at the part of the castle her lion was tugging her down, making sure that no one was watching this strange display.

Jaime remained silent, finding the place he was looking for, and pulled his wife towards him. Ryssa eyed the dark, abandoned passageway with hesitance and suspicion broke out when she was taken to a darker still alcove. All her confusion was erased, however, when Jaime’s hands gripped her waist and gently pressed her into the wall.

“You must be joking.”

“I won a great victory today. Aren’t you going to reward me, my sweet, little wife?” Jaime teased her, as he captured her mouth with his, silencing whatever witty remark she may have had. 

In spite of herself, Caryssa found herself melting against Jaime’s hard body and his hot mouth against hers, her fingers diving into his golden hair and tangling themselves there to keep his head in place. Jaime’s hands however wandered her body, teasing the silk and lace covered flesh of her sides and back.

In that debauched moment, Caryssa threw caution to the wind and allowed herself to indulge in a momentary happiness unclouded by her pining for home.

For one moment, she allowed herself to just be Caryssa and for him to just be Jaime and for nothing to exist but the two of them, their passion and that dark alcove. She allowed herself to be wanton, as Jaime lifted her skirt up past her hips, his fingers rubbing circles over her damp smallclothes as his mouth swallowed her sighing moans. 

Jaime was rocking against her when she decided that friction alone was not enough. She needed him, even if she would likely go to one of the seven hells for this act of indecency. It would most likely be worth it, she mused, as she unlaced his breeches and freed his cock from their damning confines. While her husband fiddled with the laces on her smallclothes, she ran her hand along his manhood, relishing in the power she felt as he groaned and rested his forehead against her shoulder at her actions. 

Yet, they both grew impatient, and Jaime all but ripped her smallclothes away, picked her up and slammed inside her. Caryssa bit his shoulder, her fingernails digging into his surecoat, to muffle her gasp of surprise at how incredibly full she felt with her husband suddenly inside her. Once the surprise dissipated, she wriggled her hips against his. They both let out groans simultaneously at the movement. Jaime showered her neck and shoulders with small kisses as he withdrew slightly and pushed back in.

Burying her face in his neck, Caryssa clung to his shoulders as Jaime’s thrusts became deeper and faster, the fire rising within her as she writhed against him. Vaguely, she could feel cold stone against her back and a slight breeze against her bare legs. Ryssa’s head fell back against the wall. Her eyes drifted close. Her pulse accelerated. Her body seemed to be burning as she rose higher and higher, that coil in her lower stomach becoming tighter and tighter. 

“Look at me, Ryssa,” Jaime ordered, and her eyes snapped open and fixed themselves open his face. Emerald eyes stared into winter rose blue. His face was painted with pleasure and satisfaction, those green eyes fierce and possessive. She felt one of his hands leave her waist, fumbling down between their bodies to work at making her explode before he did. “Let go, wife.”

She struggled to keep her eyes from rolling up into her head once she finally reached her peak, her walls fluttering around him, her cry muffled by her own hand that she had bitten down on. Everything went fuzzy and hazy at the intense feeling. It was so much more powerful than it had ever been before and she felt weak because of it. 

Somehow she managed to keep rocking her body until Jaime tensed and she felt his strangled moan against her skin as he shuddered his release deep inside her. 

Jaime panted, kissing Caryssa as he lowered her back to her feet. Quickly he smoothed down her hair as she straightened her dress and tucked him back into his breeches and laced them up. Looking down at her flushed cheeks and satisfied grin, he couldn’t help the chuckle that escaped between his lips.

“What are you laughing at?” Caryssa asked, blinking up at him as her fingers combed through his hair in order to make him look less debauched. 

“Whatever came over you, my lady? Fucking your husband in a hallway. Anyone could have walked by and heard.” Jaime teased her and she blushed an even darker scarlet red, but rolled her eyes at him.

“You are a terrible influence,” She blamed him, before pushing him away from her, back into the hallway. “Do I look like I’ve just brought shame upon my family or can we return to your victory feast?”

“You look beautiful.”

Caryssa stared up at him, a smile on her face, before she took his hand and tangled her fingers with his.

She missed home, but perhaps, one day in the future, she would be able to let her longings go enough for her to be happy here with Jaime. 

Maybe.


	16. The Start of Everything

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "When the gods wish to punish us,  
> they answer our prayers."
> 
> -Oscar Wilde

Caryssa was spinning around in the lightly falling snow, peals of laughter escaping her mouth, her arms spread wide to stop herself from falling. Her tiny fingers stretched outwards, trying to catch snowflakes to show to her mother. They all melted almost as soon as they touched her palm, but that thought didn’t occur to the small girl.

“Ryssa!” Caryssa stopped her spinning and stumbled as she turned to the sound of her little brother. Little three year old Robb was toddling towards her with tiny solemn Jon being pulled along with him. Her mother and father stood in the entrance to the Great Hall, her septa behind them, smiling as her two brothers reached her, even if her mother’s smile was half sad at the sight of her husband’s bastard son playing with her two children.

“Robb! Jon!” She giggled, as her brothers started pulling on her skirts, trying to pull her to their level. 

The little she-wolf reached down and embraced both of the little boys, pulling them hard into her body as they laughed gleefully and tried to wriggle free, even if they wanted nothing more than to stay in her arms. 

She let them go, but grabbed their hands and led them back over to her parents, still watching the siblings interact with one another. Her mother, heavy with child, held her hand out to her daughter as she approached and Caryssa let go of Robb’s hand to take it. 

She always kept a hold of Jon. Robb knew that his big sister loved him unconditionally and, even as young as he was, he felt it down to his very soul, but Jon was more solemn and unsure of his siblings’ affections. Lady Stark’s coldness towards him often had the little boy questioning his family’s love for him, so whenever she was with her little half-brother, her hand was always firmly grasping his. For a seven year old, she was very observant about other people and she knew that Jon often felt out of place. 

She had made it her life’s main quest to make him feel like he belonged with them and she’d do it. Even if it killed her.

Caryssa took her mother’s hand, grinning widely up at her, wide blue eyes staring into their mirror.

If Catelyn had to pick one thing she loved most about having a little girl was having her own eyes staring back at her, the Tully signature blue blinking up at her with the child-like innocence that she herself had long forgotten. 

How she had retained that innocence after what had happened to her on her namesday was beyond Lady Stark’s comprehension. She could still feel that burning anger and freezing terror that had gripped her when she and her husband found their darling first-born covered in blood with a man’s body cold and lifeless on her bed. The sight still plagued Catelyn’s dreams, and her daughter’s. Often, Catelyn would wake to find Caryssa had snuck into her and Ned’s chambers in the middle of the night and was curled up in her father’s arms. It made her so incredibly angry that her daughter had been forced to defend herself from a drunken letch who had tried to steal the very innocence that little Ryssa was gazing up at her with now.

Caryssa’s smile fell when her mother’s face started to screw up in pain.

“Mama? What’s wrong?”

“Ned, I think the babe is coming.”

As soon as the words had fallen from her mother’s mouth, her father had placed Robb back onto his feet and swept his wife up into his arms, rushing her to the Maester’s Tower. Caryssa handed her brothers over to Septa Mordane and rushed after them. Her mother had promised she could be there when the babe was born. She had been too young with Robb, but she was seven now and nothing was going to stop her from holding her mother’s hand and being the first to see her new sister.

She ran as fast as her little legs could take her, managing to rush into the Maester’s Tower before the heavy door could swing shut on her. She climbed the steps to the birthing chamber, ignored her father standing guard at the door and pushed past all the people bustling about to move to her mother’s side. She didn’t clamber onto the bed like she would have, but silently took her mother’s hand and smiled at her.

Catelyn was not surprised to see that her daughter had followed them, or that she had pushed past the Maester and the healers who would assist him to take her place at her side, but it still filled her eyes with tears when her little girl wordlessly took her hand and gripped it ever so gently as a display of comfort and reassurance. I am here, Mother, it spoke to her and Catelyn thanked the Mother for gracing her with a child as thoughtful and kind as her little she-wolf. 

“Lady Caryssa, you should not be in here. The birthing chamber is no place for little girls.” Maester Luwin stated, and Caryssa took her eyes away from her mother and stared up at him, her gaze even and cold.

“I am not a little girl anymore, Maester Luwin, and you will not move me from Mama’s side.” She declared as diplomatically as a seven year old could manage, and Maester Luwin chuckled in spite of himself at her determination and resolve. She was certainly Lord Stark’s daughter. Only he could bring a child into the world that could flit between child-like playfulness and adult sincerity and seriousness the way Lady Caryssa did.

“Of course, my Lady. Excuse me.”

Caryssa nodded at him to continue, and returned her gaze to her mother, who was smiling in spite of her pain. 

“I won’t leave you, Mama. I promise.” Caryssa whispered, pressing a gentle kiss to her mother’s hand.

And she didn’t.

Hours went by as Lady Catelyn pushed through her labor pains and finally began to push, and Caryssa didn’t leave her side once. She took to dabbing her mother’s forehead with a damp cloth given to her by one of the healers, and nattering on about how excited Robb and Jon were for the babe to arrive and how they needed a little sibling so they could learn how to love someone as much as she loved them. Her presence was soothing to her mother, Maester Luwin and the healers soon realized, as she was trying so badly not to panic in order to not to frighten Caryssa that she was actually more relaxed then her two previous births. 

Soon the cries of her newborn babe filled the air, and Caryssa grinned at the sight of the bloody baby girl and gently wiped the sweat off of her mother’s face. 

“She’s here, Mama! She’s here!” Caryssa squealed in excitement, and Catelyn smiled tiredly.

“Lady Caryssa, why don’t you come over here and help the midwife clean the babe, while I tend to your mother?”

Caryssa looked to her mother, who nodded her consent, and she let go of her mother’s hand, taking the damp cloth with her and joined one of the midwives. She didn’t do any of the cleaning, simply watched as all of the blood and goo was wiped clean and only pale, soft skin was left visible.

“Would you like to hold her, Lady Caryssa?” The midwife questioned, and Caryssa nodded her head rapidly, holding out her arms the way she had been told to when Robb was a baby. Carefully, the midwife placed the babe into the little girl’s waiting arms, making certain that the girl had her before she let her go. Caryssa blinked wide eyed at her beautiful baby sister in her arms, as mystified as she had been when she had first held Robb and Jon in her arms.

Throughout her mother’s pregnancy and the long labor, Caryssa had thought nothing but what the babe should be named. Her parents had promised her that she would be able to name her, as she had begged and pleaded for days once her mother had told her that she was to be a big sister once again. They had relented, and she had started a list. There had been Lyanna, Berena, Jocelyn, Sansa and Marna to pick from for a girl and Brandon, Rickard, Jonnel, Olyvar and Torrhen to pick from for a boy. Yet, until she set her eyes on her new sister and held her in her arms, she had been undecided.

Slowly, the little she-wolf bent her head and, as gently as she could, pressed her lips to the babe’s forehead. 

“I promise that I will not ever let any come to you, little baby. I am your big sister and I will always protect you. I swear it to the Old Gods and the New,” Caryssa whispered, staring down at the wriggling babe with faint wisps of red hair and big blue eyes that seemed almost too large for her head. “I love you, Sansa.”

“Sansa? That’s a fine name, little wolf.” 

Caryssa turned and beamed up at her father, who immediately took in the sight of the newborn in her arms. 

He seemed mystified as he stared at his new daughter and he knelt down in front of his children, just as the bells began to toll. Caryssa seemed confused and she looked to her father for answers, but he was reaching out for the baby. With as much care as possible, Caryssa passed little Sansa over to her father pressing a kiss to his cheek before marching back over to her mother and pulling herself up onto the bed, as Maester Luwin had finished his examination and had left the room to look after the boys.

“Why are the bells ringing, Papa?”

“For Sansa. They’re going to ring for a whole day in celebration of her birth.” Ned explained, with a small smile as he brought the babe over to Catelyn, who immediately opened her arms to hold her baby for the first time.

Caryssa watched as her mother stared down at Sansa, a wide smile spreading across her tired face.

“She’s perfect.” She whispered.

~*~

Ned’s thoughts were consumed with finding the truth about Jon Arryn’s death, but still he found time to worry about his daughters. Especially with Caryssa being married now. His first born, his precious daughter. He was still coming to terms with the fact that she was not his anymore. 

She had always belonged to him, even above Catelyn. The girl loved her mother dearly, but it was Ned she ran to when she hurt herself or was afraid. It was Ned she cried to about her nightmares. It was Ned she sought approval from and took advice from and gave advice to. It was Ned who had been the first person her eyes had ever laid upon, the first thing she ever witnessed was his face staring down at her in his arms.

Once she was placed into his arms, he had loved her and fallen in love with his wife too. Their marriage was one of duty, and, until the birth of their first child, that was all their marriage had been; duty. Though, after the precious gift of their daughter had been given to him, how could he not love Catelyn?

Robert had been the decider. He convinced him that marrying her to Jaime Lannister would be the best thing for her. Ned had his doubts and was very reluctant, but his friend had always been good with words when it came to twisting his arm into doing something. 

And now she was a wife. And no doubt soon, she would be a mother. Catelyn had gotten with child after the very first night they had laid together as man and wife, and now they had six children together. Caryssa would certainly inherit her mother’s fertility and have plenty of babes of her own.

It was hard to see his eldest daughter growing up and starting a family of her own, especially as all he could see when he looked at her was the little girl who had held her newborn sister in her arms and solemnly promised to be her protector forever before giving the babe a name.

Suddenly a knock at his solar door interrupted his silent reverie and Jory poked his head around the door.

“Lord Varys is here to see you, my lord.”

“Send him in.” Ned ordered, and the door was pushed open wider, allowing him to see the Spider as he sauntered through the door. 

There were very few people that had Ned’s trust in the capital, virtually none bar his own household staff and his daughters, but not one of them was Varys. He wouldn’t trust the pale, entitled eunuch as far as he could throw him. 

Ned gestured to the chair in front of his desk for Varys to sit and then nodded for Jory to wait outside, which he did though he did not close the door. 

Varys did not sit either. He looked about the room, inspecting it most likely, before he even opened his mouth. 

“How is your son, my lord?” Varys questioned, and Ned frowned, thinking of poor Bran all those miles away.

“He’ll never walk again.” 

Varys closed the shutters to the Lord Hand’s windows before walking towards the other side of the room, and Ned focused on his desk, paying no mind to the fact that Varys was clearly making the room safe to talk freely in. As freely as one can talk in the capital. 

“But his mind is sound?”

“So they say.”

“A blessing, then,” Varys stated, closing another shutter, before he moved towards the door. “I suffered an early mutilation myself. Some doors close forever,” Varys closed the door, but not before giving a small smug wave to Jory where he stood guard, “Others open in most unexpected places. May I?”

Ned nodded, and Varys finally took a seat.

“If the wrong ears heard what I’m about to tell you, off comes my head. And who would mourn poor Varys then? North or South, they sing no songs for spiders, but there are things you must know. You are the King’s Hand and the king is a fool – your friend, I know, but a fool – and doomed unless you save him.”

“I’ve been in the capital a month,” Ned glared, holding Varys with the cold icy stare that Starks were famed for. “Why have you waited so long to tell me this?”

“I didn’t trust you.” Varys replied simply. Ned resisted the urge to scoff. The Spider, the keeper of secrets, didn’t trust him, Eddard Stark, a man famed for his honor and loyalty?

“So why do you trust me now?” He questioned instead.

“The queen is not the only one who has been watching you closely. There are few men of honor in the capital. You are one of them,” Varys stated, his face portraying his honesty. Ned could not tell if the eunuch was being genuine with him, but he seemed to be. Yet the Northern lord had learned long ago that not everyone was what they seemed on the surface. “I would like to believe that I am another, strange as that may seem.”

“What sort of doom does the king face?” He wanted to get to the point of things now. The quicker he learned of the danger posed to the king, the quicker he could eliminate the threat. 

“The same sort as Jon Arryn,” Ned felt as though he had been dunked into an icy bath, the way his whole body seemed to freeze at the spider’s words. “The tears of lys, they call it. A rare and costly thing, as clear and tasteless as water. It leaves no trace.”

Ned pushed away from his desk and rose to his feet as he tried to process what he had just heard. He knew that Jon Arryn’s death was suspicious, but for him to think it and for another to confirm his suspicions…they were two different things entirely. He paced behind his desk for a moment, before turning away from Varys and staring out of the room, out onto his balcony.

“Who gave it to him?”

“Some dear friend, no doubt. But which one?” Varys asked rhetorically, shrugging his shoulders even though the Hand of the King was not watching him. “There were many. Lord Arryn was a kind and trusting man. There was one boy. All he was he owed to Jon Arryn.”

“The squire, Ser Hugh?” Ned prompted, turning to face the Master of Whispers.

“Pity, what happened to him, just when his life seemed to be going so nicely.”

“If Ser Hugh poisoned him, who paid Ser Hugh?” Ned gripped the back of his chair, leaning his weight against it slightly. This news was unwelcome, though he knew he had to get to the bottom of it. He had hoped, had prayed, that his suspicions would be proved wrong. That it was just a sickness. The Gods did not always answer his prayers.

Varys held his hands up.

“Someone who could afford it.”

“Jon was a man of peace. He was Hand for 17 years – 17 good years. Why kill him?” Ned pondered, his voice gruff with his sadness.

“He started asking questions.”

Ned felt a tremor ripple through him. 

Jon was asking questions, just like he himself had been ever since he had arrived in Kings Landing.

Ned had ever such a terrible feeling.

~*~

“Stop feeding that wolf from the table. She eats enough as it is.”

Caryssa ignored her husband, holding another piece of her bacon in her palm for Rhaenyra to devour. The direwolf gently nibbled it from her mistress’ hand, being careful not to harm her, which made the she-wolf smile and pet her with her free hand.

Jaime watched her as he chewed on his own meal, trying not to smile at how happy his wife looked even when she was disobeying him. She seemed a little bit more at peace than she had the day before and wondered what had changed.

“Why are you staring at me?” Caryssa asked him, arching a brow at him when he didn’t stop.

“I’m just admiring my view. It’s improved significantly since my return to the capital,” Caryssa fought off a blush at his compliment, shaking her head at him and choosing to eat her buttered bread to avoid ruining the moment with her ingrained sarcasm. It had been two days since the tourney feast and their debauched coupling in the abandoned corridor, and they had been getting along quite well. “What plans have you made for the day?”

“I’m going to the Tower of the Hand to meet with my father and have lunch with my sisters.”

“We could go riding in the Kingswood when you’re finished with your family,” Jaime suggested, and Caryssa looked at him in confusion. Outside of their marital bed and their chambers, they spent little time together. He would train with the Kingsguard and do his duty by protecting the King, and she spent her time with her sisters or, very reluctantly, with the Queen and her children. “You miss it, don’t you? Riding in the Wolfswood with your brothers? The Kingswood is just as pleasant to ride through-“

“Jaime, that would be lovely,” Caryssa cut him off, smiling widely at him. He was being thoughtful, and he was trying. In truth, she did miss the Wolfswood. She missed the feeling of the cold northern air biting her cheeks and blowing through her hair. She missed the quiet of it, of hearing nothing but the chirping of birds and the rustling of the wind through the trees. She missed Robb’s loud laughter and Jon’s silent snickering as she got them to chase her. “It will be nice to actually get to ride my horse. Poor thing’s probably forgotten me.”

“I doubt there’s a creature on this earth who could forget a face like that.” Jaime complimented, and this time Caryssa didn’t hold back her comment, even if her face felt warm from his flattering words. 

All of his compliments were setting off alarms in her mind. He was being too nice, and it was strange. Jaime was not one to mince his words or hand out needless compliments. He, like his entire family, used compliments as barely veiled insults or tools of manipulation. She had noticed that a lot since she had met them, especially when it came to Cersei. 

Cersei was almost a master at using compliments as her way of molding a person into becoming her spy or something amongst those lines. Caryssa had already had to warn Sansa not to be taken in by the queen’s pretty words, but she doubted that Sansa had taken her warning to heart. 

“What have you done?” Her eyes were narrowed, and she had placed her food back on its plate, giving him her full attention, ignoring her direwolf for the moment. Rhaenyra had placed her head firmly on her lap, blue eyes staring up at her intently. She most likely wanted more food or just to have her head rubbed, but Caryssa was determined not to have her mind taken away from the topic at hand.

“What are you talking about?”

“I’ve learned enough about married men from the women in Winterfell and my mother to know that an increase in compliments and effort has a direct correlation to some sort of misdeed, so what have you done?” Caryssa questioned, and Jaime looked at her in surprise, before he grinned in that oddly attractive smug way of his.

“Surprisingly, I have done no wrong, little wife, but it’s nice to see that you can’t be easily swayed by a pretty word from a charming man. My mind will be at ease for the next time the King decides to throw a feast.”

Caryssa rolled her eyes at him. 

Out of all the women in Westeros, her upbringing with her ‘honor above all’ father and her ‘family, duty, honor’ mother would make her the least likely to stray from her marital bed. Though she didn’t feel the need to defend herself. It should go without saying.

“Well, as long as your mind is at ease with my fidelity, I’m going to go take Rhaenyra for her walk.” Caryssa stated, rising from her chair and grabbing the leash. 

Rhaenyra was at her side in an instant, though she seemed to grumble as the leash was placed around her neck. 

Lady and Rhaenyra hated the leashes, though Sansa’s wolf seemed more tolerant of it. Caryssa had once taken her eyes off of her wolf, only to turn back and find she was trying to chew through the leather of her leash. The snowy white and grey pup had stopped the action as soon as she realized she had an audience, but it was enough for Caryssa to know that she hated the silly thing.

“Hush,” Caryssa murmured to her companion, and she could have sworn she saw Rhaenyra nod at her, as she tightened the leather around her neck so the wolf couldn’t slip out of it. Straightening up, Caryssa turned to look at her husband. “I’ll meet you in the stables in the afternoon for that ride.”

“I look forward to it.” Jaime smirked and Caryssa shook her head at him, knowing just from the look in his eyes where his mind had gone. The dirty bastard. She was not going to go for a roll in the hay with him, no matter how debauched and wanton he seemed to want to make her.

She left their chambers without another word, choosing not to fall into the same trap she had found herself in many times before where she retorted with something witty and sarcastic and Jaime replied in kind. They would end up in the same back and forth for too long and she would end up late. Her husband had caused her to be late one too many times to certain functions and private meetings, mostly with the queen. It was almost as if he was trying to fuel the hate his sister bore her.

Not that Cersei needed any help in her burning hatred for Caryssa. The lioness seemed to manage well enough on her own in finding reasons to belittle and pick at the she-wolf. Not that Caryssa cared much. She refused to let Cersei push her unhappiness onto her. 

Shaking her head to free her of her Cersei-centric thoughts, Caryssa vowed not to let anyone ruin her day.

Today would be one full of peace and tranquility, and nothing would get in the way of that.

Well, she hoped not.

~*~

Her trip to the gardens was pleasant and calm and overall peaceful. 

Rhaenyra was well behaved even when some of the other ladies in the court walked by and visibly recoiled at the sight of her. The wolf had even attempted to chase some butterflies that had fluttered in her vision, but Caryssa had ordered her to stop before she could actually catch and harm any.

She had stopped to talk to one of the servants tending to the garden about the new flowers that were being planted (the King had ordered for more winter roses to be planted, and Caryssa knew it was not a coincidence that they were being planted in the same area she always took Rhaenyra to) and how grateful she was for his hard work (he had blushed and stumbled in his thanks which had made her smile). 

The gardens were beautiful, but seemed to be more vibrant and full of life than usual, so she had complimented him on his work, like she did at Winterfell to the servants who tended to the Glass Gardens. The dedication the gardener had and the love and attention he gave to each flower, shrub, bush and tree reminded her of the staff of Winterfell.

She was just about to leave the gardens when she found Jory searching through them for Arya, and her peace was shattered.

Her sister was missing.

No one had seen her for hours.

Insisting that Jory let her join in the search, he took Caryssa and Rhaenyra to the Tower of the Hand, the last place someone claimed to have seen Arya. Slightly panicking about the harm that could befall her sister in such a place as the Red Keep, Caryssa almost didn’t notice that her direwolf had started to tug on her leash.

“What is it, Rhaenyra?” Caryssa asked, and the wolf just whined as she continued to pull against the leather lead.

“Perhaps she’s telling us where Lady Arya went.” Jory suggested, and Caryssa’s eyes widened at the thought and loosened her grip on the leash to see what Rhaenyra would do. 

The wolf sniffed the ground around them, her owner exchanging a look with the head of her father’s guard, but once she had the scent, her wolf’s nose barely left the ground. She led them through the Tower of the Hand, deep down into the castle, so deep down that Jory’s hand never left the hilt of his sword and he walked as closely to Caryssa as he possibly could while remaining a decent distance.

Rhaenyra’s nose led them to one of the rooms off of the dungeons which held a few surprise objects.

“Dragon skulls.” Caryssa breathed as she stared at them in awe. One was so large that it brushed the high ceiling of the room, and the she-wolf could only imagine how large a dragon it must have belonged to. Maybe it was Balerion, the largest dragon known to history, the dragon whose breath forged the Iron Throne, she mused. 

The wolf led Caryssa and Jory passed the dragon skulls, bypassing a locked gate in favor of a set of stairs that led them to a small alcove that lead to the Blackwater, where old men were fishing. 

“What was she doing out here?” Jory questioned aloud, as they picked their way across a small path of rocks until they finally made their way back to a solid path. 

“Chasing a cat, most likely. Syrio Forel has her doing it as part of her dancing lessons,” Caryssa replied, as the wolf led them back to the gate that would give them entrance to the keep once more. “I’m going to be having words with that girl. She shouldn’t be leaving the Keep. It’s dangerous.”

“I think you’ll have to wait in line, my lady. Lord Stark looked ready to have a fit when Lady Sansa told him that she hadn’t been at her lessons and that no one had seen her.”

“I think I will have first try at trying to instill some sense in to her,” Caryssa claimed, as her eyes lapsed onto a dirty ruffian that looked very familiar in front of a pair of guards that weren’t allowing her passage. Passing Rhaenyra over to Jory, she hurried forward and grabbed the child by the shoulders, breathing a sigh of relief. “What do you think you’ve been doing?”

“They won’t let me passed! They think I’m a boy!”

“You know this boy, Lady Lannister?” One guard questioned, and Caryssa looked at them both.

“This ‘boy’ is my sister, Lady Arya Stark of Winterfell, daughter of Eddard Stark, the King’s Hand. Now if you don’t mind, I am going to take my sister to my father so he can put some sense into her head.” Caryssa snapped, because, while she was relieved that her sister was well and that she had been found, the overwhelming worry that had rushed through her had dissipated into anger at her sister for not being more sensible. 

This was not Winterfell. In Winterfell, she could explore to her heart’s content from morning until night. 

King’s Landing was not Winterfell. It was not safe here, especially for children wandering about in places they had no right to be in.

“Yes, Lady Lannister. We’ll let you be on your way.” The second guard replied, stepping out of their way and Caryssa promptly pulled Arya forward, with Jory and Rhaenyra following.

Arya grumbled all the way back to their father’s solar, but a sharp glare from her elder sister silenced her each time she started up again. Caryssa was silent and her hand shook around her sister’s arm. Arya long ago learned that meant her sister was truly furious, and that let her know that she had done wrong. 

As soon as they were in their father’s solar, his eyes were on them and he seemed relieved and angry at the same time, mirroring his eldest daughter’s emotions. Jory closed the door behind them, still holding Rhaenyra’s leash in one hand, and Caryssa nudged Arya forward until she stood in front of their father’s desk, before she sat down.

Ned was seated, his hands clasped together on the table, his concern written plainly on his face.

“You know I had half my guard out searching for you?” Arya was silent, and Ned shook his head. “You promised me this would stop.”

“They said they were going to kill you!” Arya exclaimed at her father, and Caryssa’s eyes widened.

“Who did?” She questioned, a fresh panic filling her heart. This was exactly why she hadn’t wanted to come to the capital. There was no one around that they could trust but the people they had brought with them, and now her father’s life was at risk.

“I didn’t see them, but I think one was fat.” Arya answered, and Caryssa grimaced almost in time with Ned.

“Oh, Arya.” Ned sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“I’m not lying! They said you found the bastard and the wolves are fighting the lions and the savage…Something about the savage.” Arya insisted, and Caryssa was inclined to believe her. Arya had never been one for tall tales, especially about something as serious as this.

“Where did you hear this?” Their father asked, taking Arya just as seriously now as his other daughter seemed to be given the look of worry on her face and the way she was practically gnawing at her bottom lip.

“In the dungeons, near the dragon skulls.”

“What were you doing in the dungeons?”

“Chasing a cat.” Arya replied to her father’s question, and both Caryssa and Ned rolled their eyes at the same time.

Thankfully, the girl was saved by Jory knocking at the door with a message.

“Pardon, my lord. There’s a night’s watchman here begging a word. Says it’s urgent.” 

With a nod from Ned, Jory gestured to the man from the Night’s Watch to enter. Caryssa stood at the same time her father did, both of them moving to stand by Arya. The Lady Lannister smiled politely at the man, though he did not return the gesture, simply moving his eyes over her body before giving his gaze to Ned.

“Your name, friend?” Ned requested, as polite as he was taught to be by Jon Arryn. Any man of the Night’s Watch was friend to the Starks.

“Yoren, if it please,” Yoren gestured to Arya. “This must be your son. He has the look.”

“I’m a girl!” Arya protested, and Caryssa looked down at her. 

“People would not be mistaken about your gender if you kept yourself clean and tidy.”

“Did Benjen send you?” Ned questioned, trying to keep things on topic and an argument between his daughters from breaking out. 

“No one sent me, my lord. I’m here to find men for the Wall, see if there’s any scum in the dungeons that might be fit for service.” 

“Oh, we’ll find recruits for you.” Ned sighed in relief, as though he were about to receive some bad news from the Wall. Caryssa had been worried of that too. As soon as Jory had announced him, her mind had jumped instantly to Jon and her uncle Benjen, wondering if either of them had been hurt or worse. 

“Thank you, my lord, but that’s not why I disturb you now,” His words knocked the wind out of Caryssa. Just as she had stopped worrying because of his previous words, he spoke again and filled her with more concern. “Your brother Benjen, his blood runs black – makes him as much my brother as yours. It’s for his sake I rode here so hard I damn near killed my horse. There are others riding too. The whole city will know by tomorrow.”

“Know what?”

“Best said in private, my lord.” Yoren suggested, and Caryssa felt her blood run colder than it ever had.

“I won’t leave. I want to hear this.” She stated, looking at her father to show how serious she was. She would not move for anything or anyone and she would put up a hell of a fight before she allowed anyone to remove her from the room. 

Knowing that Caryssa at least would not leave, Ned placed a kiss to Arya’s forehead and nudged her towards Jory.

“Go on. We’ll talk more later. Jory, take her safely to her room.” He ordered and Jory nodded.

“Come along, my lady. You heard your father.” 

Jory led her away and Yoren closed the door behind them. All the while, Caryssa braced herself for whatever news was so terrible that a man of the Night’s Watch deemed it necessary to ride all the way from the North to tell her father before anyone else could.

“Well?” Ned pressed, resting his hand on his daughter’s shoulder and squeezing it slightly to give her some comfort. He could see in her eyes that she was steeling herself for the worst. 

“It’s about your wife, my lord,” Caryssa held her breath and tried to stop herself panicking while she waited for the man to finish speaking. “She’s taken the Imp.”

“Oh, Gods.”

~*~

Caryssa paced her chambers in her hunting garb, quiver, bow, sword and all, waiting for Jaime to return. She had told him she would meet him in the stables, but he had not been there. She had been tempted to go out and look for him, but she wouldn’t know where to start. 

Her heart was racing. She could feel it thundering in her chest and she knew it was because she was worried that Jaime had found out about what her mother had done. She was panicking. She knew little of Jaime’s temper, but if he was anything like her, he would be furious that his brother was being held prisoner. 

The phrase Lannister’s always pay their debts was running through her head over and over again, possibly making her more frantic. She did not dare to think what Jaime would do to repay her mother for taking his brother. To make things worse she had not seen her father since he had gone to see the king. This only pushed her already frayed nerves closer to the point of no return.

Rhaenyra was sitting in front of the fire, her eyes following her mistress’ every move, making the occasional whimper to let Caryssa know that she knew that she was worried. 

It was only when Daena entered that Caryssa stopped moving about the room like a mad woman, mumbling under her breath and pacing.

“Ser Lannister has ordered me to pack some of your things, my lady.” Daena informed her, before entering Caryssa and Jaime’s chambers to being her task. 

Caryssa’s eyes widened, possibly bugging out of her head at an alarming degree, and rushed after her handmaiden. 

“Did he tell you why?”

“No, my lady, but perhaps you are going to Casterly Rock. I’ve heard it’s beautiful there.” Daena replied, and Caryssa shook her head. That couldn’t be possible. He would have mentioned it that morning. Well, she hoped he would. Besides, a journey of that distance would require more than a few hours planning. Provisions would need to be collected, his men would need to be organized…she would need to be organized. 

“Where is he now?”

“He’s gone to find Lord Stark, my lady, he didn’t say why- my lady!” Daena called, as Caryssa bolted from the rooms with a barking Rhaenyra following closely behind. She went straight to the stables, thanking the Gods that she had ordered Snow to be saddled, mounted her steed and cantered through the city.

She could only think of one person who might know her father’s whereabouts, one person who would be more than willing to help her, and that was Lord Baelish, so she pushed Snow into a gallop, yelling at bystanders to keep out of her way, which they did.

The she-wolf had expected there to be more drunken lechers and half-dressed whores around, but as she grew ever close to Baelish’s place of business, she was surprised by how few people were around. Caryssa slowed Snow to a trot, looking around the houses to see that people were leaning out of their windows clearly watching some sort of dispute.

That’s when Caryssa dug her heels into Snow’s side and forced him to go faster once more. 

Her jaw almost hit Snow’s saddle when she pulled him to a stop outside of the brothel. Jaime and her father were fighting. Bodies lay across the ground. When she focused more clearly on the dead guards, some Lannister and some Stark men, she felt her heart break.

“Jory!” She yelled, tears running down her face.

Both Ned and Jaime were distracted by her cry of anguish, leaving them both vulnerable to attack, yet neither of them landed a blow. It was a Lannister guard who thrust his spear through Lord Stark’s leg, forcing him to the ground. The only sound heard was a mix of Ned’s cry of pain and his daughter’s scream.

Caryssa’s vision tinged red. She felt anger bubble up within her, a fury that she did not often feel, and she barely registered her arms moving back to her quiver, her fingers grasping both her bow and an arrow. Without thinking, she strung the arrow to her bow and let it fly, watching it with a dull satisfaction as it sunk into the guard’s eye and he fell to the ground dead.

She climbed off of her horse, replacing her bow to its quiver, and ran towards her father, falling to her knees in front of him. Her hands cradled his face and lifted his head to look up at her. He was in agony, but he tried to mask it for her and she saw right through him as his body shook from the effort. 

“I am so sorry.” Caryssa choked out, tears still running down her cheeks.

Jaime hadn’t wanted her to be involved. He hadn’t wanted her to see him like this, to see him at odds with her father, let alone his dagger in her old guard’s eye and a Lannister spear through her father’s leg. Yet, there was nothing he could do about it now. She would understand later. She had to.

He moved forward and placed a hand on her shoulder, almost wishing he hadn’t when she looked up at him. Her eyes were rimmed with red. The blue irises that were usually sparkling with mischief and warmth were shimmering with yet to be shed tears and pain. There was no trace of the smile that had been there when they broke their fast together that morning, just anger and misery, her mouth halfway between a frown and a snarl.

“Why did you do this?” She questioned quietly, her glassy eyes accusing.

“I’ll tell you on the way to the Eyrie.”

“If you think I’m going anywhere with you, you are a fool.” Caryssa hissed at him, and Jaime’s expression turned sour. He had to leave now, and he wasn’t going anywhere without his wife, so he only had one of two choices.

“You can leave with me now, willingly, or I’ll bind your hands and your feet and throw you over the back of my horse,” Jaime gave her the ultimatum, as she looked back at her father, who was gritting his teeth so he wouldn’t cry out again. “It’s your choice, wife.”

“Go,” Ned murmured to her, and Caryssa glanced at him in surprise. “Once my leg is healed, I’ll come for you. The King will send men. I’ll persuade him. Go.”

Caryssa did not want to leave her father wounded in front of a brothel where his men lay dead, but she couldn’t disobey him either. Squeezing her eyes closed, she pressed her lips to his forehead and murmured something almost inaudible in his ear, before releasing him.

Glaring at her husband, she rose to her feet, giving him a wide berth as she made her way to her horse once more and mounted the snow white stallion. 

From his place on the ground, Ned Stark watched his daughter reluctantly ride away with his enemy and felt his body shake with a whole new kind of pain. He had been wrong to trust Jaime Lannister with his daughter. He had let Robert persuade him that it would be the best thing for her, but seeing the misery in her eyes when she saw Jory dead and him wounded, he knew that he had made a grave mistake.

I will make things right, he vowed, and I will get you back.


	17. The Good-Father

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "And it was Death itself who stood behind me,
> 
> With his arms wrapped around me as tight as iron bands,
> 
> And his lipless mouth kissing my neck as if in love.
> 
> But as well as the horror, I felt a strange longing."
> 
> -Margaret Atwood, Alias Grace

Caryssa had not spoken since they left King’s Landing. 

It was frustrating her husband, she could tell, but she still did not speak. Any time that they stopped, she would dismount her horse on her own, ignore Jaime and release Rhaenyra from her cage. Whenever he tried to touch her, she would move out of the way before he could reach her. It seemed childish, but it was all she could do when she was surrounded by Lannister soldiers. She wanted to hit him. She wanted to scream at him. Gods, she wanted to hurt him the way he had hurt her.

She had not yet been able to shed tears for Jory. She wanted to, she intended to, but she would not give any Lannister soldier the satisfaction of seeing her in a vulnerable place. Instead, she was holding back her grief, her anger, mining it for a time when it would serve her best. 

Jory had taught her how to wield a sword, how to fight, how to defend herself. If she had needed a best friend other than her siblings or her parents, he would have been it. They shared their thoughts with each other. He gave her honest opinions. He had been her first real kiss, the first man she had desired. Jory had always been with her, for as long as she could remember, and now he was dead. 

Dead. By her husband’s hand.

She could not forgive it. She would not forgive it. 

Nor would she forgive Jaime attacking her father, nor what she had done to his soldier who had injured him. She had taken another life, something she had vowed not to do. She had been so angry that she had strung the arrow to her bow and released it without a thought. 

She was a murderer, no better than her husband and that thought made her furious.

That anger fuelled her resolve to not let the man touch her. Every night, she would climb into bed wearing a nightgown and immediately turn her back on him. If he tried to touch her, she just laid there and listened to Rhaenyra growl at him until he stopped.

Jaime did not help himself, really. 

On their final night of camping, just before they reached Tywin Lannister’s camp in the Riverlands, Caryssa and Jaime were sat at their table for another awkward dinner.

“I did not realise that you were so close to your father’s guard,” He was only met by silence, so he continued, trying to get under her skin to get her to speak to him. Even if it was just in rage. “I know that you didn’t fuck him before our marriage, given the blood on the sheets on our wedding night, but I bet he wanted to. Did you ever kiss him? Ever let him touch you? I know that you’re not as prudish as you seem given how much you enjoyed fucking me in that rather public alcove.”

Caryssa bit her cheek hard, feeling coppery liquid slide down her throat, and kept her retort inside of herself. He was trying to make her angry, trying to get her to speak even if it was to shred him to pieces with her own accusations and vicious words. Her eyes stayed on her plate because she was on the brink of tears and did not want him to see her cry. Nor did she want to give him the satisfaction of fleeing.

“I guess silence is its own answer.”

“He was twice the man that you are,” She said finally, ending her four day silence. She relished his surprise that she had pushed aside her stubbornness and had actually replied to his childishness. Though her actually words did not seem to surprise him at all. “I’d known him all my life and he was my friend. You took him from me.”

“Well, he would have killed me had I not killed him first. Would you rather I had died, sweet wife?”

“Yes. I would,” Caryssa stated, raising her head and glaring at him. “I would rather have Jory alive and be back in Winterfell, than be stuck here with the man who murdered him and tried to kill my father.”

A brief silence fell between them as they stared at each other. Caryssa thought for a moment that she had wounded him with her words, but if she had, he quickly hid his true emotions and replaced them with that smug arrogance that made her want to cut his throat with her knife.

“I’m surprised you haven’t attempted to kill me yet. After all, I did kill your precious Jory and your father was injured by my soldier-“

“Who I did kill,” Caryssa cut him off, tired of the conversation already. “Besides, Ser Lannister, I am not as stupid as you clearly believe me to be. I wouldn’t kill you when I’m surrounded by your soldiers. That would be suicide.”

“Back to Ser Lannister now?” Jaime quipped, seemingly displeased by the formal term of address and Caryssa rolled her eyes at him and rose from her seat.

“Informal terms of address are for people you like or for family. You are neither anymore.” Caryssa replied, walking behind her changing screen in their tent.

She pulled off her gown, wishing that she could bathe to get some of the grime off from their travels that was clinging to her skin. Caryssa sighed as she pulled off her shift and replaced it with her nightgown and then shuffled out from behind the protection of the screen and over to their shared bed. 

Jaime still sat at the table, swirling his wine and staring at the burgundy liquid sloshing around the glass, when she climbed into the bed. Rhaenyra immediately climbed up and laid herself dutifully at her mistress’ feet. Sighing once more, Caryssa raised her head from her pillow and glanced over her shoulder at him.

“Goodnight, Ser Lannister.”

“Goodnight, Lady Lannister.” Jaime replied, his eyes briefly leaving the glass and locking with hers. 

When staring into those green orbs, she felt that stab of longing for how it had been days ago. The budding…something that was forming between them, the lightness of their interactions and the fluttering in her chest when he pinned her with those eyes. When he looked at her now, she just felt angry and guilty; anger because of what he did as well as what he said and guilty that she had to fight against the urge to soften because of whatever feelings she had been developing for him prior to this whole mess.

Because she had. She knew she had. She had been slightly terrified of the prospect of loving a Lannister, so had deemed it best to ignore it and not mention it. 

Turns out that had been a wise move on her part. Caryssa couldn’t imagine actually being in love with Jaime now, not after everything that had happened. 

She wouldn’t love him.

On the Old Gods and the New, she, Caryssa Stark, would not fall in love with Jaime Lannister.

Not now. Not ever.

“You did not actually answer my questions before,” She arched a brow at him, silently asking him what in the seven hells was he talking about. “Did you love him?”

Caryssa stared at him a couple moments before she answered.

“I could have.” 

With that said, she lowered her head back to her pillow and feigned sleep until she was no longer pretending.

~*~

The next day saw the joining of the two Lannister groups; Tywin’s large army from the Rock and Jaime’s small party of loyal Lannister soldiers from King’s Landing. 

Caryssa had to continuously resist the urge to roll her eyes at the sea of deep crimson that assaulted her eyes everywhere she looked. Tents, armor, banners, saddles…everything was bloody ‘Lannister red’ and it made her eyes burn. She looked so out of place here in her grey riding gown and furs. She might as well have written a giant sign that she did not belong. ‘I’m a Stark, come and kill me’, it said. 

She was deep behind enemy lines here. And completely wary of it. 

Just because she was Jaime’s wife, and technically a Lannister now, did not mean that she could not suffer an untimely demise whilst she was being held captive by her own husband. 

Still, the She-Wolf of Winterfell did not cower in front of lions, so Caryssa held her head high as they rode into the Lannister camp and an icy expression. She could hear them mumbling about her. Things about her mother, about her father, about her beauty or her coldness, but she did not care.

‘Let them talk,’ she thought to herself, ‘Let them talk and make their stories’.

While waiting for their tent to be erected, Caryssa released Rhaenyra. She’d had to hide her smirk when she saw grown warriors flinch away from the direwolf, who grew larger and larger every day, as she started sniffing her way around the camp. Catching Jaime’s stern look, Caryssa made a gesture to Rhaenyra and then watched her scamper off into the woods by the camp to hunt for her lunch.

“Problem?”

“She should be on a leash. She makes the men nervous.” Jaime stated, and looking around and she knew he wasn’t wrong.

“Good. They’d be foolish not to be nervous. She could rip off their arms,” Caryssa smirked, giving some of the Tywin’s men a dark look as they eyed her. She looked back at Jaime with a cold expression, before returning her eyes to the whispering men. “I’d let her.”

They looked back with unamused looks until they were obstructed by another armored man. Caryssa glanced at him and saw that he looked vaguely familiar, with the salty blonde hair and green eyes. He was a Lannister if she ever saw one. 

“Uncle Kevan, it’s good to see you.”

“This must be your bride,” Ser Kevan Lannister somewhat smiled as he held out his hand to her, and she reluctantly placed her slight one in his. “Lady Caryssa, you are as charming as they say.”

“Thank you, my lord. I am sure your words would mean more were I not a reluctant pawn in my husband’s foolishness.” Caryssa smiled falsely as Kevan’s own expression soured somewhat and Jaime rolled his eyes.

“Isn’t she wonderful, Uncle? A woman with beauty and an untamable tongue.” Jaime huffed sarcastically, and Caryssa glared at him, until she felt something bump the back of her knee. She turned around and saw Rhaenyra had returned. 

She looked even more frightening now to outsiders; her white muzzle was stained with the blood of whatever woodland creature she had taken down and devoured. For a moment, Caryssa stood transfixed by the color, the deep red a stark contrast to the snow white fur. Shaking her head, she crouched down and pulled her handkerchief from her sleeve and wiped the blood away. 

“I’m sure that she is providing you with a challenge, nephew,” Caryssa once again resisted the urge to roll her eyes at the atypical maleness of Ser Kevan’s words, as she rose to her full height again and scrunched the bloody hanky up in her hand. “Your father wishes to speak to you.” 

Jaime nodded, and turned to Caryssa.

“Make sure that you get the tent organized-“

“Your father wishes to meet your wife too.”

“We’ve been travelling for a few days now. I’m sure that my wife would-“

“Would love for you to not speak for her. I have my own voice and I can use it and I would love to meet your father.” Caryssa interrupted, smirking at her husband as she took Ser Kevan’s offered hand and let him lead her forward to the largest tent.

Outwardly, she was confident and poised and calm, but inwardly, she was nervous and panicked. 

Tywin Lannister was unlike any she had ever encountered before. She had heard many stories of the head of the House Lannister, mostly from her father and his men and Maester Luwin, snippets from Tyrion during his time in Winterfell and little anecdotes from her husband from his childhood. He was a force to be reckoned with, a strong and powerful man who did not suffer fools lightly, but also had no problem with the needless bloodshed of innocent people. Like Princess Elia and her children.

It was why Dorne no longer considered themselves apart of Westeros. Their hatred for Lannisters and what had been done to their Princess and her children was well known to all Westeros. Tywin Lannister made a great enemy in the Dornish the day he sent the Mountain to kill the sister of their Prince and her children. 

But she knew that their deaths were proof enough of how great an enemy that he could be, and one she wasn’t sure she wanted to face head on, but knew she had little choice in the matter. Ser Kevan had said that Tywin had ‘wished’ to meet her, but she knew from personal experience that when men used that word it really meant that it was an order.

Before she knew it, Ser Kevan was pulling back the flaps to the tent and she was entering it, with her husband behind her and her wolf at her side. Almost immediately, Rhaenyra started growling and Caryssa’s was instantly full of dread. Rhaenyra only growled at people she perceived to be a threat or those who had upset her mistress and that meant that Tywin truly was a threat to her.

“Rhaenyra.” Caryssa silenced the direwolf, who fell back to her side and pushed her face into Caryssa’s hand.

Tywin Lannister was tall for an old man. He had broad shoulders and his eyes were the same shade of green as Cersei’s. He had the same thinning silvery blonde hair that his brother had and he was donned in all black leathers. The worst part of him was his entire presence. Just standing in front of him, Caryssa knew that he was a man who demanded respect, with an intense, intimidating gaze that made her want to disappear into the background.

Instead she just stood straighter. This was her first meeting with her good-father. She would not make a terrible first impression.

“Robert Baratheon was a fool, but he made one right decision in marrying you to my son,” Were his first words he ever said to her and Caryssa said nothing in return. She thought it might be pushing her luck to make a smart comment on how it was more than likely the worst decision Robert Baratheon had ever made. “Cersei has wrote to me many times about you, but I think perhaps she was wrong. You certainly won’t be a blight on my family’s good name, will you, Lady Caryssa?”

“It’s not in me to be a blight on a family name, my Lord. I shan’t embarrass you.”

“Though you are still wearing Stark colors, I see.”

“Maybe by marriage I am a Lannister, but I will always be a Stark. The North runs through my veins, my lord, it always has and always will.” Caryssa stated, the pride for her House and her origins clear in her voice.

“You are a Lannister now. You will act like a Lannister and dress like one. I expect to see more Lannister colors on you the next time we see each other.” Tywin ordered, his eyes sharp on hers as he picked up his carving knife and turned his attention to the felled stag on his butcher’s table. Another omen if she ever saw one.

“And if I’m not?”

She could practically hear Jaime’s sigh behind her and she almost agreed with him. Why was she picking silly little battles with his father? What was she gaining from this? Yet the words had already left her mouth and it was too late to take them back now.

“I will have all your clothes burned and replaced with new ones more befitting a Lady of the Rock,” He replied, looking over his shoulder at her, jabbing his skinning knife in her direction. “Do not test me, girl. You won’t ever win a battle against me.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it, my lord.” Caryssa sighed.

“And is that a sword at your side?”

“For my protection, yes, my lord.”

“That’s what husbands and guards are for, Lady Caryssa. You are not to carry weapons any longer either,” He sniped, and Caryssa’s jaw clenched and her eyes narrowed. “It’s not a woman’s place to carry a sword. War is the dominion of men.”

“War is the dominion of all, my lord. Men may fight the battles but it is women who are left to deal with its effects-“

“Perhaps you could tell me why you summoned me and my lovely wife to your tent as soon as we’d arrived, Father.” Jaime cut her off, so that she wouldn’t get into a debate with his father of all people. Only she could pick a fight with the mighty Tywin Lannister.

“I received a raven from King’s Landing.” Tywin pointed towards his desk and Jaime immediately walked over to it, his eyes skimming over the writing.

“You are summoned to court to answer for the crimes of your bannerman, Gregor Clegane, the Mountain. Uh, arrive within a fortnight or be branded an enemy of the crown,” Jaime stopped reading and pacing, his eyes glancing at his wife before landing on his father as he sharpened his knife. “Poor Ned Stark, brave man, terrible judgement.”

“The same kind of judgement you showed when battling him outside of a busy brothel?” Caryssa snapped, and before her husband opened his mouth to retaliate, his father beat him. 

“She’s right. Attacking him was stupid,” Tywin started carving into his kill, slicing it down the middle and pulling out its insides. Jaime seemed surprised by his father’s words and the fact that he had agreed with his wife, but she always did insist that she was right. “Lannisters do not act like fools. Are you going to say something clever? Go on. Say something clever.”

“Catelyn Stark took my brother.”

“Why is he still alive?”

“Tyrion?” Jaime questioned, and Caryssa remained silent, knowing exactly who his father had meant. 

“Ned Stark.”

“My wife arrived and one of my men interfered. Speared him through the leg before I could finish him.” Jaime explained, and Caryssa closed her eyes, clenched her fist in Rhaenyra’s fur to ground herself and counted to ten in her head. If she lost her temper now, she would say things that they would definitely make her regret and she could not even imagine what Tywin would do to punish her.

“Why is he still alive?” Tywin pressed, still skinning his stag.

“It wouldn’t have been clean and I do not doubt that if I killed her father, my beautiful wife would stab me in my sleep.”

“Clean,” Tywin scoffed, “You spend too much time worrying about what people think of you.”

“I couldn’t care less about what anyone thinks of me.” Jaime insisted, and Caryssa arched a brow at him. He cared. He cared probably more than anyone about what people thought. He just pretended he didn’t.

“That’s what you want people to think of you.”

“It’s the truth.”

“When you hear them whispering ‘Kingslayer’ behind your back, doesn’t it bother you?” Tywin pushed his son. Caryssa could see Jaime’s jaw clenched in frustration. A few days ago, she might have reached over and held his hand, tried to show him that he had her support. Now, she stood as still as a statue, except for her fingers raking through the soft fur of her protective direwolf.

“Of course it bothers me.”

“A lion doesn’t concern himself with the opinions of the sheep. I suppose I should be grateful that your vanity got in the way of your recklessness. I’m sure your wife is as well,” Tywin paused in his activity and half-turned back to face his eldest and his wife. “I’m giving you half our forces. 30,000 men. You will bring them to Catelyn Stark’s girlhood home and remind her that Lannister’s pay their debts.”

“I didn’t realize that you placed such a high value on my brother’s life.”

“He’s a Lannister,” Tywin half-chuckled. At least that’s what Caryssa thought it was. She had a hard time believing that the Lord Lannister had ever laughed in his life. “He might be the lowest of the Lannisters, but he’s one of us, and every day he remains a prisoner, the less our name commands respect.”

“So the lion does concern himself with the opinions of the sheep-“

“No, that’s not an opinion. It’s a fact,” Tywin raised his voice, so much so that Caryssa saw Rhaenyra’s hair stand on end and her face shift from neutral into a snarl. It was not an audible change, but she knew that he had seen it so she rubbed behind Rhaenyra’s ears to try and calm her down. “If another house can seize one of our own, hold him captive with impunity then we are no longer a house to be feared.”

“You lose the fear, you lose control.” Caryssa murmured, and Tywin nodded at her.

“She’s a smart girl,” Tywin commented, before returning to his butchering, turning his back on them once more. “Your mother’s dead. Before long, I’ll be dead, so will you and your wife. And your brother and your sister and all of her children and any children you might have in the future. All of us dead, all of us rotting in the ground. It’s the family name that lives on. It’s all that lives on. Not your personal glory, not your honor, but family.”

With one more flick of his knife, Tywin stopped once more and turned back to face his son.

“Do you understand?”

Jaime nodded, knowing that said more than any words could, especially since he didn’t particularly agree with his father. His family name would live on, but his personal glory and his honor would be remembered as well. Or his lack of it.

Tywin though seemed to accept his nod as an answer, and turned back to his skinned deer. Stabbing his skinning knife into the wood of the table, he began to wipe his bloody hands as he continued to lecture his son. Caryssa almost felt like she should have left a long time ago. She did not really have a place in the direction that the conversation had taken a turn towards and she felt like she was intruding.

“You’re blessed with abilities that few men possess. You’re blessed to belong to the most powerful family in the kingdoms and you’re still blessed with youth and what have you done with these blessings, huh? You’ve served as a glorified bodyguard for two kings. One a madman, the other a drunk-“

“Protecting the king is a noble task, my lord. A task that any man should be proud to undertake.” Caryssa interjected, though she did not know why. Perhaps it was because she felt pity for Jaime in that moment. A fully grown man still being belittled and berated by his father? It was almost sad. If anything it was awkward to watch, so Caryssa had felt the urge to step in and help him. It was her duty after all, even if she did loathe him.

“For a second son perhaps,” Tywin retorted and Caryssa sighed. She suddenly saw where Jaime, Cersei and Tyrion had inherited their one-mindedness. Once a thought entered their heads, they were very singular about it. Tywin stepped forward towards the pair, ignoring the quieted growling of the grey and white wolf at his good-daughter’s side. “The future of our family will be determined in these next few months. We could establish a dynasty that will last for a thousand years or we could collapse into nothing like the Targaryens did.”

Caryssa averted her eyes when Tywin placed a hand firmly on his son’s cheek. She was definitely intruding now. 

“I need you to become the man you were born to be. Not next year, not tomorrow. Now.”

With that final word, Tywin turned away from them and returned to his carving. Jaime stood there for a moment, seeming to absorb what his father had said to him, before he left the tent, beckoning for her to follow him with a simple flick of his hand.

Surprising as it may seem, but she had no desire to linger on alone in Tywin’s tent, so she hurried after him, Rhaenyra at her heels. 

They were silent on their way to their tent, and she was just thankful that it had been erected and was ready for them to return to. As soon as they were inside, Caryssa headed for the wine and Rhaenyra headed for the foot of the bed. She poured two glasses of wine, holding one out for her husband, who accepted it with an arched eyebrow.

She shook her head and simply knocked her wine back, before refilling her glass and gulping it down like it was the last drink she would ever have.

The Gods knew that they both had needed it after that horrible encounter. 

Tywin Lannister was many things, but warm and inviting were not two of them. Caryssa sincerely hoped that it was the last she saw of Tywin Lannister for a long while. She was almost thankful that her husband was now marching on her mother’s childhood home of Riverrun, because at least that meant she was away from the patriarch of her new family.

And Gods did she want to be far from him.

A few days ago, Caryssa could honestly say that she feared nothing. Not wildlings, not those stories that Old Nan used to tell her about white walkers and the foul creatures beyond the wall and not the criminals that her father sometimes had to execute when they refused the Black.

Now? She would unashamedly say that she was slightly afraid of Tywin Lannister. Nothing was more dangerous than a wise man driven by blind ambition. And that’s why she feared him, because she was starting to see the lengths that he would go just to defend his legacy. 

And nothing made her more wary.


	18. Reunions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Killing is not as easy as the innocent believe."
> 
> -J.K Rowling

Catelyn Stark could not believe her eyes. 

Her husband was in chains in the capital and she had left the Eyrie, left her sister and her madness, because her son was leading a host to war. Her precious Robb, who was barely a man grown, had an amassed an army of his father’s loyal bannermen to fight for his father’s and his sisters’ freedom. 

The Gods had seen fit to declare the Imp innocent of the crimes against her son, and in return, they had repaid her with more misery. With a war against her family. 

She halted her horse as thousands of tents came into view, and Ser Rodrick did the same at her side. They quickly glanced at each other, a thousand thoughts being expressed in one look between both of them, but only one was voiced.

“Summer snows, my lady.” Ser Rodrik commented.

There was indeed a light layer of the white powder dusted across the grass beneath their horses’ hooves. They were in the borders of the Riverlands, and very rarely did the northern cold reach here, but there were north men camped just before her.

“Robb’s brought the North with him.” Catelyn commented lightly, though her heart was anything but. 

She pushed her horse forward, wanting nothing more than to be reunited with at least one of her children. 

Entering the camp was easy. The Northerners recognized her and nodded their heads in respect as she and Rodrik rode past, guided by a couple of soldiers, until they dismounted their horses and were led to the war tent where her son was surrounded by the lords of the larger houses making battle plans.

She could scarcely believe her eyes. One day, not all that long ago, he had been a boy. Her boy. Now he was a boy with an army at his back. The Gods were not answering her prayers recently it seemed. 

Lord Umber noticed her approach first, stood and bowed his head, causing all the other men to take noticed and follow suit. 

“Mother.” Robb breathed, and for a split second, he had moved to embrace her until he remembered himself. He was leading these men now. He could be a mother’s boy no longer. Now he was a man. A man with a single purpose; to bring his family home.

She gazed at her son, finding him to look different from the last time she had seen him. He carried himself differently, she mused, more like Ned did. Like a lord, instead of a lord’s son. Technically, he was the lord now.

“You look well.” Catelyn said simply, though there was so much more to be said.

“Lady Catelyn, you’re a welcome sight in these troubled times.” Lord Umber commented, and before she could reply to him, her husband’s ward piped up. 

“We had not thought to meet you here, my lady.” Theon admitted, and Catelyn spared him a glance, noting that he looked the same. A green boy wearing men’s clothing and calling himself a man. Catelyn had never voiced this aloud, but she shared her daughter’s dislike of the Greyjoy boy. He was a traitor’s son and something about him did not sit right with her. Especially now. 

“I had not thought to be here. I would speak with my son alone. I know you will forgive me, my lords.” Catelyn ordered, though her parting sentence made it seem more like a request. She had become well versed in such phrasings over her years as Lady of Winterfell. Some men did not like being given orders by a woman, so she had found a way to work around them.

“You heard her! Move your arses! Come on, out! You too, Greyjoy. You bloody deaf?” Lord Umber ushered all the other lords out, even nudging Theon out with a firm push to the shoulder. He himself paused a moment longer in the tent, lingering to give Catelyn a small bit of comfort. Even if it did come from a rough northerner such as himself. “Have no fear, my lady. We’ll shove our swords up Tywin Lannister’s bunghole and then it’s on to the Red Keep to free Ned.”

Catelyn nodded her thanks to him, ignoring him as he embraced Rodrik behind her, her eyes locked with her son’s.

As soon as the two men were away, Catelyn broke into a smile and pulled her son into her embrace. She had missed this. The last time she had held one of her children had been in secret in the Red Keep, holding her eldest as they were reunited for the first time in a couple of months. 

She leaned back and smiled up at him, her hand brushing back his auburn curls behind his ears. 

“I remember the day you came into this world, red-faced and squalling. And now I found you leading a host to war.”

Robb frowned at the change in his mother’s voice and face. She wasn’t proud of him. She was unhappy that he was leading these men.

“There was no one else.”

“No one? Who were those men I saw here?” Catelyn pressed, and Robb fought back a scowl.

“None of them are Starks.” He explained, wondering why his mother couldn’t see why it had to be him. Nobody else could lead them. He was the Lord of Winterfell while his father had been the Hand of the King, and he was Lord of Winterfell now that his father had been imprisoned. Only he could call the banners. It was his duty.

“All of them are seasoned in battle.”

Robb was beginning to get frustrated.

“If you think you can send me back to Winterfell-“

“Oh, would that I could.” Catelyn sighed, cutting her son off midsentence. If she could send him away, she would without regrets or shame. She would rather her son be protected and safe at Winterfell than fighting a war. There was no doubt about that. But she couldn’t send him away. He may be her son, but he was a man grown now. He would have to be. 

Robb pulled away from her, stepping round the table with their battle strategies marked with wooden pieces, to reach into his satchel for the note sent from Sansa. 

He had read it over and over. They were the queen’s words, aye, but that’s not why he continued to read it. There had been no mentioned of either Caryssa or Arya. None at all. It made him worry. He wondered if it meant that they were dead, but every time that particular thought entered his head, he stopped it immediately. 

If Caryssa were dead, he would know. 

When they were children in Winterfell, they had talked about what it would be like to die during the last winter. Caryssa said that they would have to die together, because she was certain that the pain of living without him would be agonizing. He felt the same. 

His connection with this elder sister was something he couldn’t really explain, but was something undeniably to do with just how strongly his sister loved. 

She then went on to say that if they were ever separated, and one of them died, they would know. He had asked her how, and she had explained that she had heard that when part of your soul dies, you feel it deep within yourself. At the time, he hadn’t known what she meant, but now that they were separated, he did. 

Robb did not feel that agonizing emptiness now and his sister definitely still shared half of his soul and he half of hers. That is how it always had been, ever since he was born into this world. 

He handed his mother the letter, explaining who it was from, and half smiled when his mother guessed what he already knew. Sansa’s handwriting, but the words belonged to the queen. Sansa might as well have just been a scribe.

His mother had sat down to read it and she looked up at him when she finished.

“There’s no mention of Caryssa or Arya.”

“No.” 

Catelyn looked forlorn for a moment, praying silently to the Mother and the Warrior to watch over her daughters, to protect them from all harm, before she returned her gaze to her son.

“How many men do you have?”

“18,000,” Robb answered her, taking a seat opposite her. His hand clenched and unclenched where it rested on his knee, the leather of his gloves straining against the repeated action. Mindlessly, Catelyn thought that if Caryssa had been there, his hand would be in hers and his nervousness or agitation would be less visible to the world. “If I go to King’s Landing and bend my knee to Joffrey…”

“You would never be allowed to leave. No,” Catelyn shut that idea down immediately. It was no longer as simple as just bending the knee. The Queen and her son had declared war on their family by imprisoning her husband and holding her daughters hostage. “Our best hope, our only hope, is that you can defeat them in the field.”

“And if I lose?” Robb asked, though he felt he already knew the answer.

“Do you know what happened to the Targaryen children when the Mad King fell?”

“They were butchered in their sleep.” Robb looked away, his eyes focusing on a patch of snow on the ground a little bit away from them, disgust filling his features. Murdering babes and children, it wasn’t right.

“On the orders of Tywin Lannister. And the years have not made him kinder,” Catelyn informed him, earning her son’s gaze again. She continued, her voice taking on as serious a tone as she could possibly manage to convey the importance of her words. “If you lose, your father dies, your sisters die, and we die.”

“Well, that makes it simple, then.” Robb half-smiled. Putting it like that, the choices he had to make were simple. He would do whatever it took to win this war and keep his family safe.

“I suppose it does.”

~*~

Riverrun was beautiful.

Or it would be, were it not shrouded in the air of war.

Caryssa had only seen it once, before Arya had been born, but she didn’t remember it looking so magical. She realized the castle’s sudden almost ethereal beauty was probably due to the fact she was a prisoner in all but name and she was longing for family, even family she barely knew.

She and Jaime were still on unsteady ground, barely speaking past questions and one worded answers. Things were extremely uncomfortable. How could they not be? One moment they were on the brink of something…more than the typical polite political marriage, the next her father had been stabbed, her life-long friend had been killed and she was being forced to march to war against her own family, her own mother. 

Jaime’s army had already won several battles with some of the river lords who gathered their armies against his, and Caryssa had been forced to sit in a tent, guarded by twenty of his soldiers, waiting impatiently for news on who had been victorious.

Rhaenyra seemed to sense her unease and unhappiness as she was constantly at her side, nuzzling her face into Caryssa’s legs or whining or placing her head in Caryssa’s lap. In an odd way, her beloved furry companion was reminding her of her littlest brother and it made her heart ache for home once again. She missed having someone to look after, a little wolf child to follow her around and crave her attention and approval. Rickon clung to her skirts as often as he did their mother’s and it made her feel needed.

Here, in Jaime’s army, Caryssa served no purpose. She was helping no one by being here and she was resenting her husband more and more for making her leave her family behind.

Back in King’s Landing, she could have been useful. She could have looked after her sisters while her father recovered from his injury. She could have tended to him herself. She could have made the preparations to have Jory’s body returned to the North, where he belonged. So many things that she could have done, but instead duty bound her to a man who was the cause of all her troubles.

The same man who was standing at her side as she gazed upon her mother’s family’s home as he laid siege to it.

“Have you ever been to Riverrun?”

“Yes. When I was a girl. It was for my Uncle’s namesday and it was the first time I had met him or my grandfather.” Caryssa replied, her eyes sticking firmly to the castle ahead of them. Tomorrow, it would be laid siege to and it is very possible that her family could die. 

“I was sent here a few times when I was a squire. Hoster Tully would make me stay and eat. He always made me sit next to his daughter, Lysa. I think he hoped that we’d become fond of each other and we’d marry, but I was always more interested in talking to the Blackfish.” Jaime smiled wistfully as he thought of his old memories and Caryssa finally cast her gaze over him.

“Uncle Brynden?”

“Have you met him?”

“I have. He said I reminded him of my mother,” Caryssa turned her eyes away from him again as she thought of her mother. She wished she was with her now. Catelyn, as brash as she sometimes was, would know what to say to her now to make her feel better about things. “That was the first time anyone had ever said that to me. To everyone else, I’m just…”

“Lyanna Stark reborn,” Jaime finished for her, and she nodded. “I have never seen you as anyone other than yourself.”

Caryssa couldn’t even bring herself to roll her eyes. She didn’t care for his charm or his attempts to bring her around to his side once more. She couldn’t forgive what he did. She wouldn’t.

“You won’t win. Riverrun won’t fall. Not while the Blackfish is there to hold it. You and I both know that this siege will last a long time unless you withdraw your forces,” Caryssa informed him, and Jaime snorted at her. Instantly she knew that he was doubting her knowledge of warfare simply because she was a woman. Well, she was the eldest daughter of the lady of one of the Great Houses, of a castle. It was her duty to know about sieges and how to prepare for them and how to survive one. Just because she hadn’t lived through one, didn’t mean that she had no knowledge of them. “If you and your father carry on this way, you will start a war that will ravage these lands. The North and South will be at odds for centuries over a misunderstanding! Thousands of people will die for nothing more than your family’s pride-“

“Your mother started this-“

“The person who ordered my unconscious, defenseless crippled brother to be killed started this. The person who came into our home and pushed my brother from a tower started this,” Caryssa shouted at him, squaring up to him now, not caring that they had gained the attention of some nearby Lannister soldiers. Let them watch, she thought, I do not care what they think of me. “Do you think my mother would simply let that go? You saw how Cersei was over Joffrey being bitten by an animal. Imagine it had been an assassin threatening his life instead of a wolf, she would have hunted them down herself if it meant bringing them to justice. That is what mothers do. They go to the ends of the earth for their children. No matter the consequences. Tywin Lannister doesn’t care about his dwarf son. He doesn’t care that Tyrion may die. He cares that his reputation may be tarnished. That his house may be seen as weak. It’s sick.”

“Bite your tongue, wife, or lose it.” Jaime threatened and Caryssa barked out a laugh, surprised that he would have the audacity to actually threaten her with physical violence. He had never seemed to be such a man. His father, perhaps, but Jaime had seemed like a more decent man. Then again, she had been wrong about him before. 

“Try it. Rhaenyra would rip your arm off before you could even step near me with your knife,” Caryssa stated, Rhaenyra growled as if in agreement, and she took a brazen step towards her clearly angry husband. She had never seen him in such a way before. Not ever. But she knew that he would not truly hurt her. He wasn’t that stupid. “I do not fear you, Ser Lannister. Nor do I fear your men. If any harm should come to me, you would be hunted by my father, my brother, even the King. They would hunt you down and kill you and we both know it.”

Caryssa could see her words registering behind her husband’s eyes, and he took a step back from her. Before he could say anything in retaliation, his squire ran towards them with a panicked look on his face.

“My lord, news from the capital,” Peck panted, and both Ser and Lady Lannister looked at him with a one-minded interest. What had happened now? “The King died a couple weeks past and the Queen Regent has locked Lord Stark in the black cells for treason against King Joffrey. The North is raising an army...”

Her heart stopped.

Her ears were ringing.

Treason?

Not possible.

Her father wouldn’t. Not without just cause. Not unless-

This wasn’t real…and what on earth was that noise? 

Jaime had grabbed the tops of her arms and Rhaenyra was whining worriedly, and that noise was still going; a strange, strangled choking sound, a sound she had never heard before, not in her life.

“Breathe, Caryssa, you have to breathe,” Jaime instructed, and she only then realized that her hands were clutching at Jaime’s armor, but finding no purchase, and his had moved to her face, forcing her to look at him. “Breathe with me. It’ll be alright.”

The noise was coming from her.

She was panicking. She couldn’t catch her breath. She couldn’t. She was trying. 

The world went black.

~*~

Jaime caught his wife in his arms after she had fainted, completely to his shock. He had never seen her like that before, so panicked and terrified. And she was. The news from the capital had frightened her into losing consciousness. 

They both knew what the news had meant. 

Her father had been declared a traitor. 

Eddard Stark was as good as dead already. 

Jaime knew that she had not forgiven him for attacking her father and killing her friend, but he could only hope that she would not hate him for this also. Her father’s arrest had nothing to do with him. He would not have been so foolish. If Robert was dead and Joffrey had already declared himself King, it was under Cersei’s influence. 

He also knew that Eddard meant a lot to his daughter. They had a bond and a friendship that he could not truly understand as he had never had such a relationship with his own father. While her reaction had not been what he had anticipated, thinking of it, Jaime was not all that surprised. Caryssa worshipped her father like he was sent from the Gods themselves; she respected him and loved him in a way he just couldn’t respect and love Tywin. 

Jaime was her husband now and, as he gazed at her, he realized he hadn’t the faintest idea as to what he was supposed to do now.

How was he supposed to comfort his wife when she hated him?

“My lord? Should I call for a maester?” Peck questioned, but Jaime shook his head.

“I’ll take her to our tent and wait with her until she wakes. Tell Ser Addam that he is in charge of the siege for now, I do not wish to be disturbed,” Jaime ordered. His squire nodded and ran to find Ser Addam to relay his lord’s message. Jaime lifted his wife into his arms and stood, pausing only when he heard the growl of her wolf. He turned his eyes down to see the grey speckled white direwolf in full snarl before he managed to snap his fingers at her. “Come, Rhaenyra.”

Oddly, the wolf seemed to sense that this was not a moment to be arguing with him, or the animal simply chose her concern over her mistress over her anger towards him. Either way, Rhaenyra stepped into line and followed him back to their tent. 

Once inside, he placed a still unconscious Caryssa on their bed, pulling off her riding boots and her cloak and tucking her underneath the furs. 

Instead of moving away, Jaime perched on the edge of the bed, his eyes transfixed on his wife’s pale skin. Her skin had darkened slightly from the sun in the capital, but now she was as pale as snow, the color drained from her complexion. 

She had truly been shaken to the core by today’s news and he did not blame her. His wife tried so hard to be strong, and she was mostly, but everyone had a weakness. For some it was money, for others power. Caryssa’s one weakness was her family. The same as his. 

In that way, he understood her, and she him, but it was their actions and their way of dealing with things that differed. Caryssa was calm and collected. She thought things through. Jaime was brash and unpredictable. He acted first, and thought later. Caryssa thought about the consequences that her actions could have, and Jaime didn’t, not until after. If he did, perhaps he wouldn’t have attacked her father just when things were starting to look good for them.

Jaime sighed, his fingers brushing some flyaway hairs from her eyes and tucking them behind her ear, before he cupped her face with one hand.

She did not deserve what his family was putting hers through. What he was putting her through. 

~*~

When she awoke, it was dark and she was alone.

Caryssa blinked rapidly, trying to battle her disorientation and trying to work out what had happened. 

She had been arguing with Jaime, she remembered that, and then his squire had come over with that note from King’s Landing…

She bolted upright and stifled a gasp with her hand. Her father had been imprisoned. He’d been branded a traitor. Eddard Stark had been declared a traitor. The fact that people could believe that her noble, loyal and honorable father could be anything but a true servant of the rightful king was absurd. 

Caryssa felt her heart beating rapidly in her chest. The King was dead too. Robert Baratheon, her father’s oldest and dearest friend, the man who had loved her aunt so much he had started a rebellion for her, was dead. Her mind started to whirl. What was happening to the girls? Were they being looked after? Who was looking after them? Were her father’s men still alive or had they been killed protecting their lord?

And for one selfish moment, Caryssa thought, ‘Who is going to come for me now?’

Rhaenyra, who was keeping guard at the flaps of the tent, started to growl and Caryssa rose from the bed, immediately pulling out the dagger she still wore underneath her skirts. Fuck Tywin Lannister, she wasn’t going to be surrounded by her enemies without being armed. 

The direwolf was standing now and barking at whatever commotion was sounding outside, because now her mistress could hear it too. It sounded like a battle was being fought out there. Not being privy to Jaime’s war councils, she had not known that her brother had called the banners and raised an army of his own to free their father from his imprisonment and save their sisters. Nor did she know that her husband and her brother were meeting at that very moment on the battlefield. 

Not until a half crazed Lannister squire came stumbling into her tent, wielding a sword stained with blood.

Rhaenyra backed up towards Caryssa, intent on guarding her, and the woman raised her free hand toward him as he stared at her.

“They’re like animals,” He muttered. “Animals. They’re killing everyone, but a few of us who managed to escape. They are like animals.”

He was clearly in shock, and Caryssa was very wary of the sword that he waved around as he spoke, so she used as soft a voice as she could manage in the circumstances and kept her distance. 

“Who? Who is killing everyone?” Caryssa questioned, but seeing that he was seeming to not even hear her, she raised her voice. “I asked you a question, soldier. I expect an answer. Who is attacking us?”

“He came here for you. This is your fault!” He charged towards her, but he did not get close. 

Rhaenyra pounced on him and knocked him to the ground, her teeth like small blades as they cut through his throat. He screamed, the sound gurgling in his throat as it filled with his own blood, but Caryssa could not find it in her to feel sorry for him. He would have run her through with his sword if Rhaenyra hadn’t protect her. 

While her wolf finished her kill, Caryssa scrambled towards the chest at the bottom of her bed. Heaving up the heavy lid, she quickly grabbed the items she needed. Her bow and quiver, her bracers, her sword…she did not know how many men still remained alive, but she would be leaving this camp, one way or another. 

After strapping her weapons to her body, she quietly peered out of the tent and her eyes widened with what she saw. Tents on fire, Jaime’s men scattering, and riders on horses cutting down Lannister soldiers the same way hunters cut down boar. Rhaenyra had padded to her side now, the deranged man dead now, and looked up at her, waiting.

“Come, Rhaenyra. We’re leaving.”

Creeping out of the tent, Caryssa tried to avoid the confusion of the raid, deciding to hide rather than cut through what men still had their wits about them as she made her way to her horse. 

However, it was only a matter of time until she was caught.

“Where do you think you’re going?” A gruff, unfamiliar voice questioned her, and Caryssa instinctively drew her sword and turned around quickly to face her attacker. 

He was a Lannister man, his red and black armor smattered with dark crimson blood. He was at least a yard or so away from her, and she simply stared at him while she calculated how long it would take her to withdraw her bow and nock an arrow before he could reach her.

Caryssa decided to go for it, reaching back for her bow, nocking an arrow and releasing it. In a matter of seconds, the man was dead at her feet. She stared at his lifeless body for a moment, her breathing becoming shallow once more as it sunk in that she had taken another life, before Rhaenyra was tugging on her skirts to get her to move.

The she-wolf turned and spotted Snow, rushing towards the snowy white mare. Caryssa quickly saddled Snow, cooing to the horse to calm the skittish beast before climbing into the seat and pushing the mare into a gallop.

The young woman afforded herself one glance backwards at the camp, only to make certain that her direwolf was still with her, and saw a white and grey blur directly behind her. Knowing that the wolf was still with her, protecting her from harm, made her feel safer than she had since she had left Winterfell.

Cantering through the woods, Caryssa’s eyes scanned the area, having to squint through the filtered forest light in order to make out her surroundings. She couldn’t afford to lead Snow over uneven ground and lose her seat and be lost in unfamiliar territory during a raid. 

Suddenly breaking through the tree line into a wide clearing, Caryssa pulled Snow to a complete halt as she realized she had managed to stumble across the ongoing battle.

Fear spread through her body and, for a moment, she considered turning around and just disappearing back into the woods. Yet a flash of grey caught her eye and she saw the Stark banners waving in the wind on the other side of the field. 

Robb, she thought as she yanked an arrow from her quiver, strung it to her bow and saved a Stark man from being killed from an unsuspecting blow to the back of the head. He spun round to find his savior and his eyes widened before he nodded his thanks. Caryssa didn’t recognize the man, but she mused that he must have known her face. Or, at least, the face of her aunt.

Rhaenyra immediately dived into the fray, as though sensing that her brother was here too, ripping out the throats and tearing off the arms of any who moved too near herself or her mistress. It was bloody and terrifying to witness, but Caryssa held in all of the natural hysteria that came with being entirely too uncomfortable with actually taking lives and pushed her horse forward, shooting any Lannister men who tried to reach her.

“Caryssa!” 

Her head snapped towards the sound and lapsed on Jaime, who, with dead men at his feet and blood splattered across his fair face, managed to convey pure terror mixed with subtle anger at finding her on the battlefield. She opened her mouth to reply, but saw a young northerner charging at Jaime from behind. 

“No!” She cried, only to scream when Jaime turned and stabbed him through the eye, kicking his body off of his sword. 

Ignoring her inner conflict, she focused on her rage. That was how Jory had died. That’s exactly how Jaime had murdered her mentor and friend, and she had just watched him kill a boy the same way. Putting away her bow, she unsheathed her sword and sloppily cut through unsuspecting southern men as she made her way to her husband. 

However, she was beaten there. 

The battle had been won. Robb’s army had triumphed. Jaime’s army had fled or been killed or captured, just as her husband had been by at least four men. She had provided sufficient distraction to him and he had let his guard down enough for him to be wrestled to the ground.

“Ryssa! Ryssa!” 

Tears pricked her eyes as she heard that voice. It sounded exactly as it did in her head when she thought of home. Caryssa all but launched herself off of her mount and into her brother’s arms as he ran towards her and she threw her arms around neck, clutching him to her.

Brother and sister clung to each other, unsuspectingly reunited against all odds, and neither cared who watched. Her gloved fingers moved from around his neck to cup his cheeks and she got her first good look at his face.

Robb looked different. Older. Weary. Burdened. He was a green boy no longer, but a man grown, and leading an army to war.

“How did it come to this?” Caryssa whispered, and Robb shook his head, pulling her back into his arms.

He didn’t have an answer for her.


	19. Stark Siblings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "You couldn't have strength without weakness,   
> You couldn't have light without dark,   
> You couldn't have love without loss."  
> -Jodi Picoult

She rode beside her brother back to his camp. 

Robb had told her that their mother had joined him and his army mere days before, having left the Eyrie once Tyrion had been released. Inwardly, Caryssa had been pleased that the Gods had found the youngest Lannister to be innocent, but she knew that her mother must have been disappointed as it meant that the person who ordered Bran’s murder was still at large.

Caryssa was anxious to see her mother. She needed to be held, to be reassured that everything would be alright, in a way that she hadn’t needed since she was a little girl. 

When her mother had found her the morning after her seventh namesday, Catelyn had held her in her arms and she had clung to her mother, leaving bloody smears all over her mother’s grey gown, and just sobbed. Her mother had cried with her, so upset that her baby had been forced to take a life to protect herself in her own home, and rocked her against her pregnant belly while her father had men dispose of the body.

Physically, Caryssa’s hands now were clean, but she had taken lives today. She had broken a vow she had made with the Gods after she had killed the man who stabbed her father, and she was terrified of what the consequences would be. And there would be consequences. The Gods were nothing but swift with their justice.

She needed her mother.

“We’re almost there,” Robb informed her, cutting through her thoughts. When he only received a nod in return, he glanced at her and grew concerned. The last time he had seen her look so pensive and closed off was when Bran fell. “You had no choice. They could have harmed you.”

Caryssa wasn’t surprised that her brother had seen right through her and known why she was upset.

He always knew.

“They were my husband’s men. They wouldn’t have hurt me, but I didn’t think of that. I just thought of getting away. I’m not a warrior, Robb. I’ve never wanted to be one,” Caryssa admitted, her head bowed and her voice quiet. “I just…I didn’t want to ever be put in that position again. I didn’t want to be vulnerable. That’s why I begged Jory to teach me…because I was scared. I still am.”

Robb stared at her, but couldn’t find the words to comfort his sister. She had never told him any of that. Whenever she had been asked why she wanted to learn how to defend herself, Caryssa had always replied with, ‘Why not?’, and when an answer was given, usually a rendition of, ‘Because it’s unladylike’, Caryssa had always rolled her eyes and walked away. 

Nobody told the She-Wolf of Winterfell that it was unladylike to hunt or do archery or attempt to learn to swordfight and if they did, they never said it twice. 

Now, Robb was seeing his sister in a new light. That quiet confidence she displayed…that was just a mask, a defense, to hide the fact that those horrific circumstances had made her vulnerable and that sometimes she still was. 

His hatred of the man who had attacked her that night burned all the more brightly now.

Before Robb could finally say something, anything, they broke through the tree line on the edge of their camp and saw their mother waiting for them with Rodrik at the top of the hill.

Caryssa silently dug in her heels and urged Snow into a canter, breaking away from Robb and his men. 

As soon as she reached them, she was off of her horse. Catelyn mimicked her, and they crashed into each other, their arms snaring round each other like vines. Caryssa could feel her mother’s tears dampen her hair where her cheek rested against the soft strands of ebony. The she-wolf managed to hold back her own tears. She had admitted a weakness to her brother, but she would not be a whimpering waif in front of his men.

“How are you here?” Catelyn questioned, as the two women separated slightly. She noted the red rims around her daughter’s eyes and the general tightness and tenseness of her body, and knew that things had not been well for her.

“My husband,” Caryssa’s eyes lowered to the ground, focusing on a patch of snow where the grass was still fighting to be seen. She was still ashamed that she had not fought against him more to stay with her father. “He took me with him when he left King’s Landing. I had no choice.”

Catelyn saw how hard it was for her daughter to admit that. Having a choice was something that her daughter wished for most in the world, so being forced to leave her injured father behind and leave her sister’s in King’s Landing was something that her daughter would have hated.

As though Robb’s men had heard the Kingslayer mentioned, the lion himself was dumped at the feet of the two women, who looked at him unsympathetically.

“By the time they knew what was happening, it had already happened.” Robb revealed proudly. 

Jaime righted himself and looked up at his wife and her mother. Stood side by side, he could see the similarities between them. Always being likened to her dead aunt, nobody saw Catelyn Stark in Caryssa, but Jaime could now. They were holding themselves in the same way, the same fierce dislike displayed on the two women’s faces as they stared down at him, and their eyes were the same shade of ice blue.

“Lady Stark,” Jaime greeted cordially, despite being tied up. Caryssa wanted to roll her eyes, because of course Jaime would try to downplay the seriousness of the situation he had gotten himself into. “I don’t have my sword. I seem to have lost it.”

“It is not your sword I want.” Catelyn bit out. 

Caryssa felt more than uncomfortable. This was the first meeting between them since she had married and she would have rather reintroduced her mother and Jaime on better terms. This should have been a happy moment for her. She should be showing her husband off to her mother, even with his Lannister name, not standing beside her mother as she glared daggers into his dirty face, probably wishing him dead.

“Give me my daughters back. Give me my husband.” Catelyn ordered, and Jaime gave her a sarcastic response that had Caryssa fuming. He had caused this. The least he could do was show some respect.

“I’ve lost them too, I’m afraid. All but my lovely wife.”

“Kill him, Robb! Send his head to his father,” Theon advised, and Caryssa’s eyes snapped towards the Kraken, wondering how he seemed to get more stupid instead of more intelligent as he grew older. “He cut down ten of our men. You saw him.”

“Has sense taken leave of you, Greyjoy? If we kill him, Tywin Lannister will kill my father, my sisters, and any Stark men left in King’s Landing!” Caryssa all but snarled at him. She had no patience for fools, not when it came to her family’s safety. “And then he would not stop until House Stark was nothing more than a song sung in warning, like the Reynes of Castamere. We cannot kill him, but we can use him to our advantage.”

“Are you just saying that because he is your husband, Lady Lannister?” Theon responded, and Robb had to stop Caryssa from starting forward and showing just how wrong the Kraken was.

“He killed Jory. If it weren’t for my father and my sisters being held prisoner by his sister and nephew, I would have killed him myself.” 

“I’m hurt, my love! I thought we shared something special-” Jaime’s blatant attempt at riling her up was cut short by Lord Umber striking him in the jaw, silencing the Lion of Lannister before the She-Wolf of Winterfell could change her mind.

“Keep your mouth shut, Kingslayer.”

“My sister is right. He’s more use to us alive.” Robb interjected before his sister and Theon could start arguing again.

“Take him away and put him in irons.” Catelyn ordered and Lord Umber and Theon moved to do as she commanded, but, though he stood, Jaime did not walk away.

“We could end this war right now, boy. Save thousands of lives. You fight for the Starks, I fight for the Lannisters,” Jaime tempted Robb, and Caryssa’s eyes widened as she looked between them. Her brother and her husband. Fighting to the death. Right now, she could think of nothing worse than being put through that. “Swords or lances, teeth and nails, choose your weapons and let’s end this here and now.”

“If we did it your way, Kingslayer, you’d win,” Caryssa felt a sigh of relief leave her body and she was grateful that Theon’s stupidity had not rubbed off on her brother all of these years. Robb shook his head. “We’re not doing it your way.”

“Come on, pretty man. Say goodbye to your wife. I doubt she’ll visit you often.” Lord Umber taunted Jaime, and Caryssa’s eyes connected with Jaime’s green ones. They seemingly looked right through her.

“I believe she will. It’s her duty, after all, and she is a woman of duty.” Jaime said with a smirk, before Lord Umber tugged him away to the cheering of the Stark army. 

Caryssa shook her head, and looked towards Robb as Theon approached him. He had a sad look in his eyes and it made her want to pull her little brother into her arms as she used to. She couldn’t. Before he was simply her little brother, the one who came to her with his nightmares and troubles. Now he was Lord Robb of Winterfell, leading an army to save their father and sisters. He was no longer free to show affection and love as he used to be.

“I sent two thousand men to their deaths today.”

“The bards will sing songs of their sacrifice.” Theon replied, trying to soothe his friend’s guilt. The one thing she could not fault Theon for was that he really did love her brother as if he were his own blood.

“Aye, but the dead won’t hear them,” Robb answered, and Caryssa took his hand, her eyes soft with understanding and sympathy. He tugged her along as he stepped forward to address his men, never relinquishing his hold on her. It was soothing to have her by his side once more. He felt more…whole again. “One victory does not make us conquerors. Did we free my father? Did we rescue my sisters from the Queen? Did we free the North from those who want us on our knees? This war is far from over.”

Robb’s speech had left his men silent and silent is how he left them, his sister in tow. He walked away, to the tents that had been hastily erected upon his return, and pulled his sister into the largest, the one that belonged to him.

It was only then did Caryssa speak again.

“I am proud of you.”

“For what?” Robb asked, beginning to tug at his armor to remove it. Caryssa moved forward silently and helped him, undoing the clasps and buckles that held it together. Robb kept his eyes off of his sister as she helped him shirk his heavy armor, not wanting to see the understanding in them that was always there for him. “For killing men, for sacrificing two thousand innocent Northmen to Tywin Lannister-“

“For doing what you believe is right,” Caryssa cut him off, cupping his cheeks in her hands to force him to look at her. Blue connected with blue and Robb saw pride and understanding and fear and guilt in her eyes. “For keeping your promise to me. I asked you to protect our family, to keep the North secure and to not forget who we are. You are doing more than what I expected to uphold that promise. I have never been more proud of you, little brother.”

Robb shook his head, a little smile spreading across his lips.

“It’s stupid, but when I called for the bannermen, I hoped you’d still be in King’s Landing with Sansa and Arya. I wanted to defeat the Lannisters, ride into King’s Landing and save you, like in those stories you used to tell me and Jon when we were little.”

Caryssa smiled weakly at him. Those stories she had told her brothers was just one. The story of her Uncle Brandon and her Aunt Lyanna, except with a happier ending for all. She changed the names and changed the location to a grand palace in Essos, but the hero of her story saved his beloved sister from her cruel fate and took her home in the end. Unlike her uncle and aunt, who only returned home in spirit. 

Robb and Jon had loved that story, and when she told it to Sansa when she was old enough to appreciate it, the little girl would make them all play it out with Jon being the wicked prince who stole the young maiden and Robb the gallant lord who went to save his sister. 

She missed the innocence of their youth. She missed being able to pretend these tragic parts of their family history could have had happier endings. She missed believing in happy endings.

Caryssa just missed.

The young woman had half a mind to tell him the true origins of that particular story, but couldn’t bring herself to do it. She couldn’t tell Robb that he was her Brandon and she was his Lyanna, because that was like felt like tempting fate. It felt like asking for history to repeat itself, and she did not want her story to end the way her aunt’s did, nor did she want her brother to die for her.

No, she could not tell him that. 

The tale of Caryssa and Robb would not end in the same way as the tale of Brandon and Lyanna.

She would make sure of it.


	20. Broken Dams

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "You wake every morning to fight the same demons
> 
> That left you so tired the night before,
> 
> And that, my dear, is bravery."
> 
> -Unknown

“How could you?”

Her words, while quiet, were full of anger. Caryssa was furious, completely and utterly livid. In fact, she could not remember a single moment that she had ever been this angry at her brother and her mother. The pair of them eyed her with concern from across the table, seeing the fire in her eyes and her clenched fists and knew that they were in for a fight.

“We had to cross the Twins. You know that Walder Frey always demands a toll.” Robb answered, then winced as he realized just how badly he had phrased that. He was lucky to be wearing his armor, because he wasn’t certain if her love for him would be enough to stop her from trying to stab him.

“So…instead of gold or some land in the north, you gave him our sister?” Caryssa’s voice had risen at the end so she was almost shouting the words at them. 

Catelyn squeezed her eyes closed and counted to ten, knowing that her daughter was really upset by this and needed to be handled in a calm manner so she wasn’t agitated further.

“It was the only way. Daughters have been given away for alliances for centuries. It’s just how the world is.” Catelyn stated, her voice even and calm, even when she saw her daughter’s expression darken.

“Is that what you tell yourself to ease your guilt, Mother? ‘It’s just how the world is’. Does that bring you comfort when you know that Sansa is trapped in King’s Landing, betrothed to a boy who disembowels his brother’s pets and thinks people’s pain is a funny joke? Will that ease your mind when this war is over and Arya resents you for marrying her to a Frey boy when she didn’t want that life?” Caryssa questioned, her voice oddly calmer than it had been, though her face betrayed just how disgusted she was. The world was wrong and one day, if Caryssa ever had children of her own, she would not force her children to marry for anything other than love. The way the world should work. “Did it bring you comfort when you were riding away from King’s Landing, knowing that in a couple of days I would be marrying the Kingslayer?”

“That is not fair-” Catelyn started, but her daughter cut her off.

“Do not speak to me of what is fair. You sold your daughter like a slave for a bridge! A bridge, Mother. Arya is not even here to speak in defense of herself. That is unfair.”

Before Robb or Catelyn could defend themselves, Theon sauntered into the tent, a sealed letter in his hand, and all three Stark’s shot him murderous glances, angry that he had interrupted what was clearly a private family discussion.

“What do you want, Theon?” Caryssa demanded, and Theon looked at her in surprise. She hadn’t called him by his first name in years. She was too angry with the family sitting before her to even bother to participate in her usual hatred for the Kraken.

“A raven from King’s Landing.” Theon handed the paper over to Robb, who opened it quickly, wondering if it was another letter from Sansa. Maybe there had been news of Arya’s whereabouts.

Caryssa watched as her brother’s eyes scanned the page, and she could pinpoint the exact moment she saw his face pale and his eyes dull at whatever news he had been given. He was silent as he dropped the letter to the table and stormed out of the tent, Theon following him and asking him what was wrong. Caryssa quickly snatched the letter up and read it herself.

Eddard Stark,   
former Lord of Winterfell and Warden of the North,  
has been executed for his treason by order of Joffrey Baratheon,  
First of His Name,  
King of the Seven Kingdoms.

Long live the King.

Caryssa read those few words over and over again, until her vision was too blurry to see them anymore.

A note with just thirty five words had broken her heart and destroyed her world. The young she-wolf felt like she couldn’t breathe. Her free hand moved to her chest, her nails digging absently into her skin as though she could claw the pain out with bloodied fingers. 

“What does it say? Why did Robb leave like that?” Catelyn asked, gasping when she saw the devastation in her daughter’s eyes. 

Caryssa’s anger had melted away and had been replaced by pure heartbreak. The one other person she was closer to in this world than Robb was her father and now he was gone and Caryssa couldn’t even find the words to tell her mother.

So she didn’t. 

She handed the note over to her mother, not even bothering to hide her tears in front of her. This was not the time for vanity or pride. 

Catelyn read it once, twice, three times before she crumpled it and tossed it away, her entire being in pain right to her soul. 

“They killed him,” Catelyn looked up at her daughter, who was staring at the table and she knew that, despite the tears rolling down her pale cheeks, Caryssa was holding most of her pain back. “They killed him. Father’s dead.”

Caryssa repeated the words over and over, aloud and in her head, and they still did not seem real. She could not fathom a world in which Ned Stark did not exist. As a child, you always believe that your parents are immortal beings that will not die and leave you, and while Caryssa was old enough to not believe that fairytale anymore, she also couldn’t believe that her father had been killed.

He had fought in wars against men bigger and stronger than him and had walked away from them. He had battled wildlings and hunted bears and mountain lions and had never been harmed. How could he have been killed at the order of a boy who had never fought a day in his life?

Catelyn moved around the table, sat on the bench beside her and pulled her daughter into her arms.

Which is when the dam broke inside Caryssa and the flood began.

She sobbed onto her mother’s shoulder, big, hearty cries, not caring that Robb’s men outside the tent may hear her. Her father had been killed and nothing like that mattered anymore. Not her pride, not her vanity.  
She was just a broken, damaged girl crying over the loss of her father, seeking comfort from her mother.

“They killed him!” 

“We will avenge him, my love,” Catelyn’s voice was hard, harder than her daughter had ever heard it, and as strong as steel. “We’ll show them just what the Wolves of Winter will do when they hurt us.”

Caryssa nodded against her mother’s shoulder, her breathing still harsh.

She would show them.

The wolves would come for them. 

And the lions would die screaming.

 

~*~

Once her mother had left the tent to search for Robb, Caryssa threw on her cloak and tied her sword about her waist and stormed out of Robb’s personal tent, only once her tears had dried, with Rhaenyra in close pursuit.

It was dark and several fires had been lit, but Caryssa did not give the change of hour any attention, deciding to put her efforts to avoiding as many of Robb’s men as possible.

She did not succeed.

Everyone she encountered gave her their condolences, having heard the news from Robb or Theon or perhaps her mother, and she nodded gracefully as a way of thanks to any who did, though she did not smile. On the outside, she imagined she looked like the ice lady everyone thought her to be, but on the inside, she was lost and fragile and broken.

Some of the Lords must have expected her to stop and talk to them, really listen to their condolences and thank them for their service to her father, but she did not.

Caryssa had someone else to speak to and she would not waste her words on anyone else.

She marched past everyone until she was deep within the camp and was near to the place the prisoners were kept. Her pace slowed as she approached him, her footsteps quiet but for the sound of leaves crunching underneath her boots. That coupled with the soft growls rising out of Rhaenyra’s throat alerted the man she had come to see to her presence. 

“I was wondering when they would allow you to come visit me. I didn’t think it would be this soon-” Jaime cut himself off, seeing the red rims around his wife’s eyes and having already heard the news about the newly departed Ned Stark. She was closest to her father out of all of his children and Jaime knew that his death would come at a heavy personal price to her. “I am sorry to hear about-“

“I’m going to kill them,” Caryssa interrupted him, her voice taking on a quality not unlike her mother’s had earlier. Hard, cold, detached, unfeeling. “I’m going to kill them all. Cersei, Joffrey, Tywin…They are going to die by my hand and I will make sure they die screaming.”

Jaime stared at her, wide-eyed and in a state of disbelief and shock.

He knew that his wife enjoyed more male pursuits, like hunting and politics, but she had always hated death. He knew that from the guilt he saw in her eyes when she told the story of the first man she killed, and how she barely spoke after her friend Jory’s death and killing the soldier who had stabbed her father. Killing was not something she relished in, not like him. She did not wish to be a soldier or a warrior, like her little sister had. That was not why she had learned how to shoot a bow or wield a dagger. Caryssa had only wished to have the means to protect herself, as she thought all women should have.

The woman standing before him sounded all too eager to end the lives of his family. This new Caryssa was bloodthirsty and chomping at the bit to see Joffrey, Cersei and Tywin dead, but strangest of all, she wanted to be the one to do it. 

Jaime knew better than most the pain of losing a parent and how it could change a person if they were not prepared for it. He hadn’t been and Caryssa certainly wasn’t. It hadn’t been Lady Joanna’s time when she died, and it had not been Ned Stark’s time either, and he knew how close she was to him. He knew that Caryssa idolized her father, respected him and adored him, perhaps even more than she loved the brother who had him chained to this post.

But he never believed that Lord Stark’s death could push her to such a dark place.

“I can’t let you do that.” Jaime finally said. Not just for the sake of his family, but for Caryssa’s own sake as well. 

His feelings had grown exponentially for his little wife over the course of their short marriage. She was no longer just an amusement to him, a distraction from his ended relationship to Cersei. Caryssa meant more to him now. He just didn’t know what the feelings were exactly. It was different from what he felt for his sister, that was for certain, but it was just as strong.

Caryssa looked at him, her blue eyes usually so light seeming dull and darker than usual, and her gaze left him feeling cold. The Ice Maiden, Jaime mused, colder than the lands beyond the Wall. 

An odd, weak smile spread across her lips, though it felt wrong to be smiling with how she was feeling on the inside, and she watched confusion sweep across her husband’s face. 

“They killed my father. They have my sisters,” Caryssa stepped closer to him, and then dropped to her knees in front of him, not caring about the mud that would surely cake her skirts now, and she cupped his dirty cheeks between her hands. “What do expect me to do, Jaime? When you believed my mother would kill Tyrion, you immediately sought revenge. Why do you expect me to do any differently?”

“Because you are a good woman, you aren’t a murderer,” Caryssa shook her head at his words, her hands sliding away from his face and to her sides. She was. She had taken more lives than she had ever wanted to. The guard at Winterfell, the Lannister guard who speared her father in the leg, the guard who tried to kill her in her tent, and a few in the battle. Caryssa knew that there was blood on her hands that wouldn’t wash away and guilt that would never leave her because of it. Jaime could see where her mind had gone and shook his head. “You aren’t. Lives taken in self-defense do not count. There was no malice behind them…well most of them. What you should seek for your father is justice, not vengeance, just like he did for his father, brother and sister. Because that is what Stark’s do, isn’t it? Fight honorably and seek justice. Leave the vengeance to darker, more twisted people, like me.”

Caryssa stared at him, tears welling up in her blue eyes once more. That’s all she seemed to be doing recently. Crying like a child. Gritting her teeth to try and stave off the tears, she took in his words. Even though she thought she had gone to him with the intention of taunting him with her plans for his family, she realized that what she really sought was advice. 

Like her mother and father would, she thought numbly.

Even though Jaime sometimes played the fool, he was anything but, and his words did resonate with the part of her that was screaming for good and clean justice, instead of the more immoral, messy and altogether painful vengeance the other half of her was crying out for. 

She was a Stark and, be him alive or dead, she was still the daughter of Eddard Stark. She knew that her father had been welcomed by the Gods in the Seven Heavens and was watching over her, so she had to live her life as honorably as she could. 

After a long while, Caryssa nodded and Jaime’s body relaxed. 

When he had looked at her a moment ago, he saw a dark haired version of Cersei; vengeful and hate filled.  
It had surprised him how unsettling that had been.

“Lady Caryssa!” They both snapped their heads towards the voice, and saw Lord Umber standing just a distance behind her, his son, the Smalljon, beside him. Caryssa rose to her feet, brushing off the mud from her skirts the best she could before she turned to face them. “You should not be here alone. He’ll try to poison your mind with his lies.”

“If you believe that anything I say could influence my wife to do anything or believe anything…you do not know her very well, do you, Umber?” Jaime forced a smirk onto his face, as he watched his wife step closer to his enemies and further away from him. 

“I’ve always taken everything my husband says with a grain of salt, Lord Umber. I’m not a naïve child,” Caryssa replied, her voice dull and cold once more. “Has Robb returned to camp with my mother?”

“Yes, he asked for us to find you. There is to be a war council in his tent, my lady.” Smalljon informed her, and she gave him a wane smile that lacked warmth.

“Then we should not keep him waiting,” Caryssa said, twisting her head round so she could look at Jaime once more. “I got what I needed here. Goodbye, Ser Jaime.”

“Until next time, Lady Caryssa.”


	21. Long Live The King

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "We all burn.
> 
> We burn in fire. We burn in blood.
> 
> We burn in dreams and it never ends."
> 
> -Unknown

She could feel the damp grass through the skirt of her dress, she could hear the wind softly rustling the leaves of the trees around her, but she felt like this was a dream.

The cold air spoke to her of the North, and it was just quiet enough for her to hear faint voices on the wind from the castle. 

She was home.

Caryssa opened her eyes. In front of her, the same sad face of the heart tree stared back at her as though it looked into her very soul. Her hands were clasped tightly together in her lap, as though she had been praying to the Gods, and she wondered what for.

They had not helped her father. 

Why would they help her?

“Because you’re an innocent girl, Caryssa, and the Gods protect the innocent.” 

Caryssa’s whole body froze for a moment, before slowly, cautiously, she looked over her shoulder, with tears welling up in her eyes at the familiar voice coupled with the sight of him. Her father sat on his tree stump, cleaning Ice like he usually did in the Godswood. He looked exactly how she remembered him; long dark hair, brooding face, trimmed beard. 

It was almost like he had never left her, never been attacked by her husband, never ‘committed treason’, like he had never been murdered.

He looked almost younger, like the world had been lifted from his shoulders.

“Are you just going to stare at me all day long or are you going to come sit with me?” Ned questioned, and Caryssa got to her feet mindlessly, not even bothering to remove the flecks of mud, broken blades of grass and old, wet red leaves from her skirts, and sat on her own tree stump.

“This is a dream, isn’t it? We’re not really here.”

“No, we’re not,” Ned agreed and Caryssa felt the need to cry. She wanted home more than anything. She wanted her mother and her father and all her siblings together in Winterfell, not scattered across the Realm. “But that doesn’t mean that we’re not together.”

“We’re not. You’re dead, father, and Jon is at the Wall, Sansa and Arya are in King’s Landing, Bran and Rickon are at home, and Robb, Mother and I are marching to war,” Caryssa pressed, trying to rein in her emotions. After all, her father was the dead one, if anyone deserved to cry, it was him, not her. “Our pack has been divided.”

She watched her father sigh, as he put away Ice and turned to face her fully. He reached out and took her hand, and Caryssa nearly sobbed in relief. He felt real. She could feel the warmth from his hand, the weight of it, in hers. It meant that she could almost convince herself that none of it had happened. That they were really home in Winterfell and that he wasn’t dead and he was here holding her hand.

But she had never been one for delusions.

“The lone wolf dies, Caryssa, but the pack survives. I taught you that from when you were a little girl. That same little girl who promised each and every one of her siblings that she would allow no harm to come to them, who looked after her mother and gave her father the best gift of all; peace of mind,” Ned gripped her hand tightly in his, moving his free hand to catch the tears that had started to fall from her eyes, wiping them away with his knuckles. “You’ll keep them all as safe as you can, and you’ll never give up trying to bring our family back together again, because it is not in your nature, just like it wasn’t in mine.”

“Father…I don’t know what to do.”

Ned chuckled and gave her a soft, sad look, one he often gave her when she seemed lost or under pressure. Not that he had ever put her under any. Caryssa was the type who put pressure upon herself. She asked too much of herself, even when others asked nothing of her. She didn’t even realize that she did. 

“Not many do, who live to see times like these. You’ve always been a smart girl. You will work out the best path for you, but you must not give up hope or give up on your faith,” Ned leaned forward and pressed a gentle kiss to his daughter’s forehead, and Caryssa’s eyes fluttered closed at the bittersweet moment. “You have to wake up now, Caryssa. Wake up, girl.”

~*~

“Caryssa, wake up! Wake up!” 

Feeling someone shaking her, the young woman bolted upright, one hand curled round the handle of a knife, and blearily looked around for the intruder.

She sighed in relief when it was only her mother. Caryssa dropped the knife instantly, and dropped her head into her hands when she saw that it was dark outside. She had not intended to go to sleep when she had returned to her tent. They had spent the whole day planning their strategy; which roads they were to take, which castles they were going to visit…and they had paused their council meeting, after a disagreement between Lord Glover and Lord Umber over something inconsequential, to clear their heads.

“I’m sorry, Mother. You startled me. I didn’t mean to pull a knife on you.” Caryssa apologized, and Catelyn nodded, a smile spoke of her forgiveness. 

In truth, there was nothing really to forgive. War did things to the young. Made them paranoid and overly cautious. Her daughter had nothing to fear while she was in this camp; her tent was in the very center of camp with Robb’s right next to it and Catelyn’s on the other side. No harm would come to her. Especially with the direwolf curled up at her feet. 

“You were mumbling in your sleep,” Catelyn said softly, her heart twinging slightly when she remembered what her daughter had said. ‘Father, I don’t know what to do’. Catelyn wished these burdens had never come to her children, having to fight a war to save their siblings, but there was little she could have done to stop it. “You spoke of your father.”

Caryssa wondered for a moment if she should tell her mother of her dream, to ask her if the things she had dreamt her father had said would have really been said by him if he were there with them now or if it was just her mind telling her things it thought she wanted to hear.

Looking at the pain in her mother’s eyes, she decided not to. Talking about him hurt them both.

“It was just a dream,” Caryssa replied, turning away from her mother as she climbed off of her bed, earning herself a huff of annoyance from Rhaenyra whom she had disturbed with her movement. “Come, Rhaenyra. The meeting has begun again?”

“Yes. Your brother asked me to come fetch you. I think it comforts him to have you by his side. Makes him…braver.”

“We all need someone who makes us feel brave,” Caryssa cracked the slightest of smiles for her mother, and her mother did her best to return the favor. Smiling was incredibly difficult during times like these, now more than ever, but they had to try, for each other’s sake. “Some who makes us feel strong. Robb needs someone like that, and, if I can do that for him, it would be my honor.”

Catelyn’s smile came easier then. She may have lost Ned, the backbone of their family, at least she still had Caryssa, the heart.

They walked in silence from then on, the only sounds came from Rhaenyra, who panted alongside her companion. Robb and all his men rose as the two women approached, honorable as ever, but the first one who spoke was Theon, and Caryssa wished he hadn’t.

“Lady Lannister decides to join us once more.”

Caryssa glared at him, as she took her seat on one side of Robb, and waited until all the men sat down before she responded.

“Names mean nothing, Theon. For instance, the Kingslayer may be my husband but that doesn’t make me a Lannister. Just like Balon Greyjoy is your father, but it doesn’t make you his heir,” Caryssa knew it was cruel to pour metaphorical salt on Theon’s wounds, but, after what the Lannister’s had done to her father, she was in no mood to be associated with them, not even in jest. “I am a Stark. First, last and always, and no one is taking my name from me, but I believe that we actually had things to discuss, did we not?”

“She’s right. We have yet to decide on where we stand on the three kings who claim right to the Iron Throne.” Robb stated, pushing the small argument between his sister and his friend aside for more important discussions. Decisions that needed to be made, and quickly.

“The proper course is clear,” Lord Bracken announced, and Caryssa and Robb exchanged an amused look as he moves into the center of their little gathering. House Bracken was a small house in the Riverlands, the South, and everyone in camp knew where he sided on this issue. “Pledge fealty to King Renly and move south to join our forces with his.”

“Renly is not the king.”

“You cannot mean to hold to Joffrey, my lord. He put your father to death.”

“That doesn’t make Renly king,” Robb declared, his voice sure and unfaltering. Caryssa watched with pride in her eyes as Robb continued. His men hung on his every word, she could see that. They really listened to him, even though he was younger than all of the Lords and most of their soldiers, and it made her proud to see that Robb was so respected already. “He’s Robert’s youngest brother. If Bran can’t be Lord of Winterfell before me, Renly can’t be king before Stannis.”

“Do you mean to declare us for Stannis?” Lord Bracken questioned, and other men started to talk over each other, shouting out their opinions and their desires.

Caryssa looked at her brother, an ache in her head starting to form at all the voices overlapping and turning into nonsense, and he smiled at her, and took her hand in his, squeezing it gently in comfort. He always knew when she was even mildly distressed.

“My lords. My lords!” Lord Umber rose from his seat and stood in front of Robb and Caryssa, in front of the circle of all the lords gathered there. “Here is what I say to these two kings.”

Caryssa chuckled as Lord Umber spat on the floor, the cheers and laughter rising up from the other men, clearly pleased with his stance on the issue.

“Renly Baratheon is nothing to me, nor Stannis neither. Why should they rule over me and mine from some flowery seat in the South? What do they know of the Wall or the Wolfswood? Even their gods are wrong!” Caryssa felt dread seep into her heart and panic prickle her skin, even as everyone laughed around her. If Lord Umber was going where she believed he was going with his speech, then she was afraid. Not for herself or for their family or their home, but for her brother. “Why shouldn’t we rule ourselves again? It was the dragons we bowed to and now the dragons are dead!”

Lord Umber withdrew his sword from its scabbard and pointed it in Robb’s direction.

Caryssa felt all her breath leave her. 

It was happening.

By the Gods, it was happening and she couldn’t do anything to stop it without belittling her brother and his standing amongst his men. 

“There sits the only king I mean to bend my knee to – the King in the North!” 

Lord Umber went down on bended knee, and Robb climbed to his feet, leaving his sister and his mother to stare up at him in mind-numbing shock. 

“I’ll have peace on those terms. They can keep their Red Castle and their iron chair too,” Lord Glover agreed, and Caryssa watched with wide eyes as yet another Lord declared her brother a king. He mimicked Lord Umber, his sword being pulled from its scabbard, him kneeling before a somewhat stunned Robb. “The King in the North!”

Theon stood next.

“Am I your brother, now and always?”

“Now and always.” Robb answered, and though Caryssa wanted to argue against trusting Theon, she knew her brother wouldn’t listen. 

He never listened to her when it came to his friend. He only saw Theon, but Caryssa saw what her mother saw. Balon Greyjoy’s puppet in the North. Her mother had warned her many years ago to not trust the boy her father had taken on as a ward, and she hadn’t. She honestly hoped that the kraken would prove her lack of trust to be unfounded, but only for Robb’s sake.

Theon moved to kneel between the two lords already on their knees and took out his sword, staring up at her brother.

“My sword is yours…in victory and defeat, from this day until my last day.”

“The King in the North!” Lord Umber yelled, and Caryssa closed her eyes as it echoed around their gathering, men, and women in Maege and Dacey Mormont’s case, taking up the chant and declaring their independence from the Iron Throne. 

Caryssa felt her hand being tugged at and her eyes shot open, seeing Robb looking down at her and smiling. He pulled her to her feet and closer to him. If he felt her trembling, he said nothing, but grasped her tighter as they both looked out at the sea of faces, still chanting his new title.

She was afraid for her brother, more than she had when she discovered that he was riding to war with their family’s bannermen at his back.

Being declared king, it painted an even larger target on his back. It made him an even bigger threat to Joffrey’s rule, and she knew that Tywin Lannister would not take this larger threat to his power lightly. She knew where the true power behind the throne was, it wasn’t Cersei, as the lioness believed. It was the old lion, and he still had razor sharp claws and a bite far more worse than his bark.

She was afraid for her brother, but she knew that she had to hold onto hope, like her father had said.

The hope that the rest of her family would make it out of this war alive, that they would all return home and that things would turn out alright in the end.

Gods, she hoped that.

~*~

Once the chanting had stopped, Robb dismissed all the lords for the night and decided to escort Caryssa back to her tent. 

She didn’t know what to say to him. 

He was clearly pleased that his men had so much faith in him, so much respect for him that they wanted to be ruled once more by a Stark instead of a Southern king, as it had been for hundreds of years since the Targaryens had conquered Westeros by dragon fire and Torrhen Stark became the King Who Knelt. Yet she had so many doubts. 

Not in him. Never in her brother, but mostly in herself. 

How was she supposed to protect him when he was so intent on making himself a bigger and bigger threat? How was she supposed to bring her family together again if she wasn’t sure if they would make it home again? What if they didn’t survive this war? What would happened to sweet, ladylike Sansa and wild, untamable Arya and broken but brave Bran and precious baby Rickon? And Jon! Jon, all alone on the Wall, with no real clue as to what was happening to his family in his absence, what would happen to him?

What would happen to the ones they left behind?

When they were inside her tent, Robb pulled her into his arms and she held him so tight she was almost worried she would strangle him.

“I know that you are worried-“

“I was worried when you started to raise an army, I am terrified for you now, brother,” Caryssa admitted, and she cupped his face between her hands, forcing his blue eyes to focus on hers. “I made an oath to you once, do you remember?”

“You promised to always protect me. You swore to the Gods, but, Ryssa, we were just children-” Caryssa cut Robb off once more by covering his mouth with her hand and he huffed behind her palm but didn’t try to speak again.

“Not once have I ever broken an oath I swore to you, and I don’t intend to,” Caryssa removed her hand from his mouth and wrapped her arms around him instead, leaning her head on his shoulder. “Gods do I wish none of this had happened. That things were as they were before King Robert came to Winterfell. Back when things were simpler.”

“Things aren’t as they were before, but that doesn’t mean they can’t be that way again.” Robb answered, one of his hands moving from her back to smooth down her hair. 

Caryssa allowed herself that moment of comfort, of being soothed by her brother, of allowing herself to believe that perhaps things could get back to how they used to be once they had fought and won this war, but the moment ended far too soon, with her head winning the battle of rational versus irrational against her heart. 

“No. Nothing will ever be the same again.” She whispered.


	22. Revalations I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "The only thing worse than a boy who hates you;
> 
> A boy who loves you."
> 
> -Markus Zusak

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: The song in this chapter does not belong to me. It is 'Lavender's Blue', which is an English folk song from the 17th century. 
> 
> You may recognise it from the movie, "Cinderella", which starred Game of Thrones' very own, Richard Madden, in which he made a very dreamy Prince Charming.
> 
> Check out the song on Youtube if you want :)

“Lavender’s green, dilly dilly, lavender’s blue, if you love me, dilly dilly, I will love you,” Caryssa sang as she wiped the fevered brow of an injured soldier with a damp rag. “Let the birds sing, dilly dilly, and the lambs play. We shall be safe, dilly dilly, out of harm’s way.”

Robb had won two more battles since his first and Caryssa had sat on the sidelines with her mother, worrying about her little brother, but knowing that she couldn’t take any more lives herself. 

Instead, she chose to aid the maester that accompanied the Northern army with his work. She cleaned wounds with the poultices given to her, changed dressings, and sometimes just sang to patients while holding their hands. It soothed a lot of them, sent them to sleep. For others it was just a distraction from their pain.

“I love to dance, dilly dilly, I love to sing. When I am queen, dilly dilly, you’ll be my king. Who told me so, dilly dilly, who told me so? I told myself, dilly dilly, I told me so.” Caryssa finished, seeing that the man had finally fallen asleep.

It was better that he rested, he would heal that much quicker. That’s what the maester had told her anyway.

The warrior was a man from Bear Island and Dacey Mormont had brought her to him herself, requesting that the princess soothe his nightmares in the only way she knew how. The two women had bonded during the time they spent in each other’s company, being two of only four women in the Northern host, excluding the few whores that the men had travelling with them so they could abate their lust post-battle.

Dacey had been intimidating at first, being a true female warrior, just like her still rather terrifying mother, Maege Mormont, but Caryssa soon found out that Dacey was far more similar to her than she thought. Or, at least, their interests were the same.

The bear took her duty to Robb very seriously. She had dived in front of an arrow for her king in the last battle even, though thankfully it had not struck either of them. Caryssa found herself grateful for the older woman. Grateful that another woman cared enough about the young wolf that she was willing to meet her end for him, like Caryssa was.

The Mormont women were even two of Robb’s most trusted advisors, often bringing to the table that which the men of his council often lacked; sense. 

Caryssa smoothed the man’s sweat-soaked hair out of his face, and rose to her feet. Looking around the makeshift healing tent, she noted that there were far too many beds filled.

Robb was successful, she knew that. He had the most victories in this war so far, but she couldn’t help but think of the cost. So many lives had been cut short in the name of her family, in the name of freeing the North from its enemies. Too many men who would never return home to their families.

She knew that there would always be casualties in war, but she also couldn’t help wishing there had been another way.

Shaking her head, Caryssa left the tent, leaving the pained groans and frightened cries of the injured behind her. Blood covered her hands from when she helped the maester amputate the infected limb of one of Lord Glover’s men. It covered her dress and apron too. Her hair was escaping from the tight braid she had styled it in that morning, falling in front of her eyes.

Perfect lady Sansa would be frothing at the mouth in shock and disgust if she could see what her big sister looked like. 

Caryssa didn’t care what she looked like. 

The new princess was only glad she had something to keep her occupied, something that allowed her to contribute something to her brother’s war. Her mother did nothing but advise her brother and worry about her brother and pray for her brother.

The she-wolf could not stay so idle and focus on her worries. She needed to do something, to work, like she did in Winterfell. In King’s Landing, she had nothing to do and it was boring.

“Princess Caryssa, King Robb requests your presence for a council meeting.”

She looked down at her bloodied dress and then back at Robb’s squire, Olyvar Frey, and arched her brow at him.

“Does he expect me right this instant or will my brother allow me to clean myself up first?” She questioned with a smile on her face.

“I think he would not mind if you were a little late, your highness, if it meant you were not covered in blood.” 

“Please let him know that I will be late, I wouldn’t want to incur the wrath of the Young Wolf. I do so hate awkward family dinners,” Caryssa teased, and Olyvar cracked a smile, still a little unsure of her presence. She had the notion that the Frey boy had not spent much time around women, despite having such a large family with many sisters. He was so nervous around her, and her mother. “Thank you, Olyvar.”

“Of course, Princess.”

“Caryssa…I’m no princess, even if my brother finds himself a King.”

Olyvar said nothing, simply nodding at her before leaving to find her brother. 

Caryssa rolled her eyes before she herself left to change out of her dirtied clothes and scrub her blood stained hands and cheeks clean. She was still unused to all of Robb’s men who would greet her as their princess and lower their heads in respect to her. She knew that Robb was also uncomfortable with his new status, not wanting to be treated differently, but knowing that only a Stark could be King in the North.

Dressing in a clean, black wool gown with a white cotton shift underneath it, she pulled on her fox fur cloak and was met by Rhaenyra outside. The wolf was not allowed in the healer’s tent, so Caryssa sent her furry companion off into the forest while she worked. Rhaenyra always seemed to understand every word that she spoke, and listened to her orders instantly. If Caryssa told Rhaenyra to stay, the direwolf stayed. If she told her to go off into the woods, off the creature went. There was a flow of communication between them, an understanding that Caryssa had never felt with an animal before. 

Bending over, the young woman pressed a soft kiss to her companion’s nose, scratching the direwolf under her chin and grinning as the large animal seemed to smile. As she straightened up, something above caught her eye and she blinked before staring up at it. 

A bright, red comet streaked across the open blue sky, puzzling the archer. She had never seen such an image in her entire life. It was actually quite a disturbing sight, another omen, but she knew not what it meant. Needing answers, she hurried to the council meeting.

Rhaenyra didn’t leave Ryssa’s side until they reached Robb’s tent, and that was only to sit next to her own brother as the woman took her seat next to her own.

“Olyvar said you would be late, Ryssa. Said something about you looking as though you had fought a war yourself.” Robb greeted her, a slight smile peeking past his beard. 

“The maester had to take a man’s leg this morning, and it was a rather bloody affair, brother,” Caryssa explained, pouring herself a goblet of wine and taking a sip. “The comet…has anyone any idea what it means? The Gods have sent it for a reason.”

“That comet bodes ill for us all.”

Caryssa eyed Rodrick with curiosity, she had never heard any superstitions regarding comets and signs in the sky and the like.

“How so?” Robb questioned, turning to look at Rodrik also.

“Some say it is Lannister Red, they say it means the Lannisters will have a great victory-“

Ryssa considered that notion, and dismissed it. The Lannisters may win a battle, but they would not win the war. Evil would always get its comeuppance, no matter how long it took, and Caryssa planned on being there to see the lions fall.

Pursing her lips, she looked up at the white haired man who stood guard behind her mother, and tilted her head to the side as she considered his words.

“Perhaps, perhaps not. Perhaps it is a warning to the Lannisters – Robb Stark and the northern lords are coming for them and he will paint their keep a different shade of red,” Caryssa suggested, earning a few laughs from the lords around the table, though her mother gave her a dark look. She was often unhappy with Caryssa when she spoke in such a way. It was unladylike for a lady, let alone a princess. “You should not hold so much faith in omens, Ser Rodrik. I’m starting to believe that men make their own fates.”

“We should also not ignore a sign from the Gods, sister. That in itself is a bad omen.” Robb insisted, and the princess nodded, agreeing with him.

“You are right, brother dearest, but we must also focus on our reality too, I think. The North has had another victory, and we are all very proud of you, but three battles does not mean the war is won,” She held her hand up when the lords all started speaking over her, arguing that they most certainly were winning the war and the Lannisters were most definitely losing the war, and silenced them once more. “Tywin Lannister will not be so easily defeated, and to believe so is foolish. He is far too invested in his own crusade; to leave a lasting Lannister legacy. He desires nothing more than to have his family name live on for centuries after he is gone and he will stop at nothing to achieve that goal.”

The table was quiet as the men, and women, took in her warning, mulling her words over in their own heads. They took just long enough for Olyvar to finally sneak towards his king with a note – rolled up parchment, clearly sent by raven. 

Caryssa held her breath as Robb opened it. It could just be news from Winterfell, maybe Bran had trouble dealing with an issue raised to him as Lord of Winterfell, or it could be something different entirely. She prayed to the old gods and the new that it would not be another death notice.

She knew she would not be able to handle losing one of her sisters, not so soon after losing her father and Jory. She could not take another blow to her family, she would not.

“It’s from Stannis Baratheon.” Robb read, but he paused, his blue eyes flickering over to his sister. Caryssa wondered what news that the Stormlord could have that pertained to her. It obviously did or her brother would not have hesitated to tell them, nor would his gaze have lingered on her for so long.

“Well? What news does he offer us from Dragonstone?” Catelyn questioned, bringing her son’s attention away from her daughter and back to the rest of the room. She was also worried about what Stannis could possibly have to say, that so clearly would have an effect on Caryssa.

“He is formally declaring his claim on the throne,” Robb informed them, not that any in the large war tent were surprised. Caryssa wondered what more the raven could say, because that wasn’t the end of it. She could see it in her brother’s expression. He was hesitating, trying to think of his words more carefully as though he was afraid he would say something wrong and hurt her. “He also claims that Joffrey Baratheon has no legitimate claim to the seven kingdoms.”

“He may be an evil little boy, but he is still King Robert’s eldest son. His claim is undoubtedly the strongest.” Dacey recalled, and Caryssa nodded along to her words. He was a horrible little brat, a murderer and a wretch, but he was still the rightful king, even if they were working to overthrow his tyranny.

“He says that Joffrey, Tommen and Myrcella are not Robert’s legitimate children, but are borne from incest between the Queen and the Kingslayer, Jaime Lannister.”

The room went quiet.

Every set of eyes fell upon Caryssa and just stared, waiting for her reaction.

She wanted to scream. She wanted to scream and cry and flip the table over. She wanted to take Rhaenyra to her husband’s cage and set the direwolf on him, listen to his pained cries for mercy and watch the carnage unfold.

The Ice Princess did none of it.

Instead, Caryssa cleared her throat, picked up her goblet and sipped at her wine to buy her time while she gathered her thoughts. Then, she turned and looked at her brother, who was watching her with the greatest concern.

“Speaking of the Stormlands, we should form an alliance with Stannis. He’s a seasoned warrior, and our father trusted him. In order to storm King’s Landing, would it not be wiser to attack from two fronts? Land and sea?” When she received no reply to her words, she looked around the table at all who were watching her. “Please tell me if I’m wrong, I’m no warrior, I’ve never planned a war. All I know is from war stories told to me by my father.”

“Did you not hear-?” Lord Umber started, but Caryssa slammed her goblet down on the table, hard, the wine splashing onto the wood, a quick burst of anger that soon dissipated.

“I heard, Lord Umber. My husband fucked his sister and put three babes in her belly…I heard. What do you expect me to do? Cry into my mother’s skirts? Set my direwolf on him and watch as she mauls off his pretty face? I can’t. If I kill him, that bitch in the capital will slaughter my sisters,” Caryssa explained, before glancing around the table at her audience, listening intently to her every word. Dacey, who sat beside her, looked disgusted and enraged on her behalf, as did both their mothers. The lords all just looked outraged by the news. Caryssa took a deep breath and tried to swallow past the lump in her throat, before she spoke. “We can use this news against them. We can use this to remove that little cub from the throne, but we must act quickly.”

“Princess Caryssa is right. We need to decide our next move, Your Grace. Perhaps an alliance with either Renly or Stannis would not be such a bad idea. We double our numbers and we’ll destroy those golden haired bastards before they even realize what’s happened.” Lord Glover suggested, and Caryssa found herself grateful that she was earning the support of Robb’s men. 

She had worried they would not take her seriously, even being the eldest daughter of their former liege lord and the eldest sister of their king, because of her marriage to Jaime.

“The question now is; who do we invite into an alliance; Stannis or Renly?” Robb asked, and the room quietened once more as they all contemplated the question.

Which brother to side with?

Which, indeed.

~*~

The council was brought to a close for the day, Robb ordering everyone to think about their next course of action so they could make a more well-informed decision.

Caryssa, still reeling from the revelation that the raven brought, wanted nothing more than to go to her tent, crawl under her furs with Rhaenyra at her side and sleep off her waking nightmare.

But Robb had other ideas.

“Ryssa, come with me.”

Not having much choice from the way he took her arm and all but dragged her along behind him, Caryssa followed her brother to wherever he wanted to go. She had an inkling she knew where he was so insistent on them going, but she hoped that Robb would see past his own rage and see that it was the last place she wanted to be.

Alas, the wolf blood in her brother had taken over for now and he led her forward to the makeshift prison and its sole occupant. 

The keeper of the key to the lion’s cage quickly unlocked it when he saw the king and the princess approach, and Robb nudged Caryssa inside first before entering himself. The woman shifted to the side, trying to exclude herself from whatever was going to happen, but her husband’s eyes were glued to her regardless of how small she tried to make herself seem in order to not attract attention.

“King in the North!” Jaime greeted, still as sure and cocky as ever, despite the couple of months of being trapped behind bars. He always was one for keeping up appearances, even if he pretended not to care. “I keep expecting you to leave me in one castle or another for safekeeping, but you drag me along from camp to camp. Have you grown fond of me, Stark? Is that it? I’ve never seen you with a girl.”

“It was my sister’s idea.” Robb revealed and Jaime glanced over at Caryssa with a brief look of surprise.

“Was it now? I knew you had fallen for me, little wife-”

“If we left you with one of Robb’s bannermen, your father would know within a fortnight and his bannerman would receive a raven with a message, ‘Release my son and you’ll be rich beyond your dreams. Refuse and your house will be destroyed, root and stem.’” Caryssa explained, cutting him off before he could go any further with his word games and watched Jaime’s expression change. 

He was shocked.

“You don’t trust the loyalty of the men following your brother into battle?” The ragged lion asked, incredulous, as though the notion that she would not trust men of the north completely ridiculous. 

“Oh, we trust them with our lives, just not with yours.” Robb answered for her, and Jaime bobbed his head, nodding as if the idea wasn’t so ridiculous after all.

“Smart boy,” Even Caryssa felt Robb tense at how Jaime addressed him. He may have been but a green boy when this war began, but he was a boy no longer. Now Robb was a man grown, fighting a war and, thus far, winning a war. Yet, Jaime would rub salt in her brother’s wounds. “What’s wrong? Don’t like being called ‘boy’. Insulted?”

Caryssa’s wary expression transformed into an easy smile when a harmony of soft growls hit her hears like the most beautiful music she had ever heard. Jaime tried his best not to seem intimidated by the sounds that were coming from both sides of his wooden prison, but Caryssa knew him well enough to see past the façade. He was scared. He wasn’t stupid. The Lannister man knew that if ordered, both the direwolves would rip him to pieces and pick at his bones for days until nothing remained of Tywin Lannister’s favorite son.

“You insult yourself, Kingslayer. You’ve been defeated by a boy. You’re held captive by a boy. Perhaps you’ll be killed by a boy,” Robb taunted the man, whose eyes would flit between both sides of his cage, watching the two hulking beasts approach. “Unless my sister would rather do the deed herself.”

“She wouldn’t-” Jaime managed to spit out, his gaze still wholly focused on Rhaenyra and Grey Wind, who now stood by their respective masters, before his wife’s brother cut him off.

“Stannis Baratheon sent ravens to all the high lords of Westeros. King Joffrey Baratheon is neither a true king nor a true Baratheon,” Her husband ripped his eyes away from the wolves so quickly she was sure he had hurt himself. Caryssa looked into his green eyes, eyes that she had once thought she could fall in love with, and saw the panic there, even though his face looked only tense. He knew that she knew the truth. She knew that he knew that she was lost to him now. “He’s your bastard son.”

Caryssa’s chest ached even more now that she faced Jaime as the words were spoken. She had watched him, scrutinized every facial tick and every emotion that lit up in his eyes as Robb had spoken, and she knew the truth.

‘Eyes are the windows to men’s souls,’ her mother had once told her, and, with Jaime, she knew it to be true. While his face often disguised his true thoughts and feelings, it were those beautiful green orbs that betrayed him. 

“If that’s true, Stannis is the rightful king. How convenient for him.” Jaime mocked, trying to find a way out. He always was clever with words. Not as clever as Tyrion, or even Cersei, but still frighteningly wise in using words to manipulate. Perhaps it was taught to them all as children in Casterly Rock.

“Our father learned the truth. That’s why you had him executed.” Robb accused.

It was only then that Caryssa looked at her brother and realized that they were mimicking each other. Both of them were standing tall, commanding expressions on their faces, one hand petting the head of their direwolf to seem threatening. Well, she certainly hoped that was how it was coming across to their captive.

“I was your prisoner when Ned Stark lost his head.”

“He didn’t lose it. A head’s not like a knife or a coin purse. Your,” Caryssa gritted her teeth, not wanting to say it but having to. If she didn’t say it, it was like she was holding out on the hope it wouldn’t be true. That her husband wasn’t so depraved and sick that he would really father three children with his own wicked sister. “Your son ordered one of his pets to brutally behead my father while my sister stood at his side and was forced to watch. All so the world wouldn’t learn who fathered him.”

“You have proof? Or do you want to trade gossip like a group of fishwives?”

“I’m sending one of your cousins down to King’s Landing with my peace terms.” Robb informed Jaime, who once again looked as though he couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

“You think my father’s going to negotiate with you? You don’t know him very well.”

“My sister said the same thing. The thing is, he’s starting to know me.”

“Three victories don’t make you a conqueror.”

Caryssa was startled at her words coming from Jaime’s mouth. Perhaps, in the time they spent together as man and wife before all of this mess came about, they had rubbed off on one another more than they had realized. 

“It’s better than three defeats.”

With that Robb let go of Grey Wind, encouraging him forward and turned and left the cage.

Caryssa didn’t follow. She watched the grey direwolf stalk forward, snarling at the man tied to the post, revealing his razor sharp teeth before snapping them barely an inch away from his face. Jaime had closed his eyes and tilted his head away from the animal, but when he opened them again, the wolf was gone and only his wife and her own pet remained.

She stared at him, trying to decide what to say or if she wanted to say anything at all. The last thing she wanted was to get sucked into the same old battle of wits with him, but neither did she want to walk away having said nothing and let him call that a win.

So she asked him a question that she knew would throw him off and one that she had been pondering ever since he had attacked her father and killed Jory.

“Did we ever have a chance? Was there ever a moment you thought that you could love me and that we could be happy?”

Jaime stared up at her, his green eyes softer than she had seen them probably since they had met, and he took a deep breath before he sent her heart jumping into her throat and her head ache.

“When we danced at my victory feast, I realized that I had fallen in love with you, the stubborn and irritating woman that you are. I still do. Even when I’m tied to this post and at your brother’s mercy.” 

Caryssa had no response. 

What could she possibly say to the man who killed her friend, attacked her father, killed some of her brother’s sworn bannermen and fathered three children with his own sister? Even if his answer would have made her happy only a couple of months ago, even if she possibly could have replied the same, she was only conflicted now.

Conflicted between her love for him and her hate. 

So instead of replying to him, she gave him a simple nod and turned on her heel and left his foul-smelling prison, her hand still tangled in Rhaenyra’s fur, less for comfort and more for stability. She wasn’t sure if her legs would carry her otherwise. They felt weak.

She felt weak and the young woman cursed herself for letting him affect her still.

There was no way there could be a future for her and her husband. 

They were on opposite sides of a war. He was her brother’s prisoner. His son had murdered her father. He had three children with his sister, the woman who hated her beyond all logical reason. Well, not without reason now, Caryssa supposed, since the she-wolf had married the lioness’ mate. 

The mere thought of Cersei touching Jaime in that way made Caryssa want to be sick, and not just because they were brother and sister, though that was the biggest part of it, but because Jaime was her husband. Even if most of her hated him, even if part of her wished that he would just disappear, he was still the man she married and whether she liked it or not, feelings had developed on her side as well. 

She loved him. 

She, Caryssa Stark, had fallen in love with the Kingslayer, Jaime Lannister.

She prayed the Gods would have mercy on her for falling in love with a man who had no morals or principles, who lived for his sins and sought only to add more to his already large pile.

Having found her way back to her tent, the woman collapsed onto her bed as soon as she was inside. Caryssa was emotionally, mentally and physically worn out. Her body and mind both ached and demanded rest.

And she was more than happy to oblige.

The young woman reluctantly sat up to yank off her boots and shrug off her cloak and pull her dress over her head to leave her in nothing but her shift, before she shifted so that she was under the furs. Rhaenyra, seeing that her human had finally curled her in bed, climbed up onto the bed and laid beside her as she had done for the last two months.

Caryssa had found it hard to sleep alone after having become accustomed to sharing her bed and being surrounded by the heat her husband gave off so, when Rhaenyra started leaping onto the bed and curling up beside her, she stopped turning the white-grey direwolf away.

It was a comfort to have her right there beside her as well. She knew that no one could possibly get into the tent without either a guard seeing or Rhaenyra hearing it, but it made her sleep better knowing that if an intruder somehow did make his, or her, way into her tent, they would not reach her without losing an arm or their life.

Curling around the wolf and burying her face into her fur, Caryssa fell asleep, even though her mind and her heart were at odds with each other.

And she slept soundly.


	23. Last Living Son

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "There are two reasons we don't trust people.
> 
> First – we don't know them.
> 
> Second – we know them."
> 
> -Unknown

She was running through the forest by the Northern camp.

Except she was not herself.

It was as though she had become a wolf, a creature on all fours, cantering through the forest on padded feet, claws digging into the earth to propel herself further. Caryssa had never felt anything like this, the power and the freedom and the pure adrenaline coursing through her veins. It must be what flying feels like, she mused, as she was going so fast that it felt like her paws were barely touching the ground.

The scent of another animal and the far-off sound of a strong, beating heart could only mean one thing.

She was on the hunt. 

The desire to rip into the warm flesh of her prey rippled through her, the bloodlust the only thing on her mind. She did not battle like her brother, but the want was there. The need to kill to defend her family was deep in her bones, in the deepest recesses of her soul, and perhaps this was what the dream was telling her.

Because it could only be but a dream.

The smell of her quarry almost burned her nose and sent a flurry of excitement through her, and then she saw it. 

A beautiful, delectable-looking doe right there in her sights. 

She could have snuck up on it, but there was no fun in that. The chase was all there was. So, she burst forward into the small clearing the doe was grazing in and startled the poor creature into fleeing. She toyed with it, running at half the speed she knew she could, letting the deer believe it might possibly escape, that it was fast enough to outrun her.

It wasn’t. 

Her jaws clamped down on the doe’s hind leg, sending the animal into the damp dirt by a small lake. With two front paws pinning the terrified deer to the ground, she snarled at it, almost grinning in her victory, before her teeth ripped through the soft flesh of its neck. It bled to death, twitching and thrashing even as it happened.

It had put up a fight, and instead of making her feel guilt for taking its life, she felt exhilarated. Adrenaline pumped around her body even as she tore chunks of raw meat from the dead animal who had been oh so alive just moments before.

After eating her fill, she left the rest to the birds and moved to the lake to drink and clean her muzzle.

It was most definitely Rhaenyra’s reflection that stared back at her, her snowy white muzzle drenched with blood the color of Dornish wine and…

~*~

That’s when Caryssa woke up, her heart beating just as fast as it had in her peculiar dream. It had felt so real, like she was really in Rhaenyra’s body. 

She had never felt so powerful in her life, so strong and so…unafraid. It had been exhilarating. As strange and almost disturbing a dream as it had been, it was also the most free she had felt since leaving Winterfell all those months ago, and she wanted to feel that way again.

Only she knew that it was impossible.

Freedom didn’t belong to people in her position. She was the eldest woman of her house, already married, even if it was to the uncle of their enemy, and she was now considered to be royal. A princess of winter. She was even less free to make her own decisions than she had been even before marrying Jaime.

She hated it, if she was being honest.

Robb had her escorted everywhere, even though she had Rhaenyra and her bow, by at least two guards, and that was without the men that sometimes accompanied the both of them and her mother. She felt stifled, despite spending most of her days out doors, and her whole body ached to be let of the leash her brother had unconsciously put her on.

Though, when Dacey entered her tent, after she had washed and dressed, she knew that it wasn’t merely a social visit and she was the princess’ escort for the day.

The worst part was that they thought they were being subtle about it. All of Robb’s lords had ‘spent the day’ with her, following her almost everywhere without saying that they had been asked to escort her around the camp and the surrounding areas as though she wouldn’t work it out herself.

“Your highness, your mother and brother wish to see you in your mother’s tent, if you may.”

“I’ve told you, Dacey, I’m no princess. Caryssa is fine, Ryssa if you prefer,” Caryssa replied, as she rose to her feet and smoothed out the black skirt she was wearing, placing the book she had been reading on the small table she called her own. “None of this titles nonsense. We’re friends, remember?”

“Ryssa, we should hurry. Your brother had that constipated look on his face that means that he’s troubled.”

Caryssa burst out laughing, picturing the exact look that the woman from Bear Island was talking about, but the she-wolf had never heard anyone describe it that way. She probably wouldn’t be able to see that particular look on Robb’s face without giggling now.

“Then let us go! We cannot allow our King to bear such a look upon his fair face!”

The two women cackled together as they left the princess’ tent, drawing the eye of everyone who witnessed it. It was a strange thing indeed to see the Ice Princess laughing like a regular woman. In fact, it made her seem younger than the years that chaos and strife had piled on top of her, making her look more like the nineteen year old woman that she was.

Still, it was an odd thing indeed to see.

The ice thawing around the princess’ apparent cold heart.

Dacey left Caryssa outside her mother’s tent, apparently heading to train with Smalljon Umber but unless ‘training’ had an entirely different meaning that the she-wolf didn’t know about, there was little chance of actual training to be done. Especially with the wicked grin that Dacey gave her as she walked away.

Chuckling as she entered the tent, Caryssa was unsurprised to find her mother angrily pacing and her brother looking both agitated and exhausted. Both in their natural states, or so their natural states had become during this godforsaken war. 

“What, other than the obvious, has you both so tense?” Caryssa questioned, moving further into the canvas room and sitting herself down on the chair opposite her brother. He looked troubled, Dacey was right, but it wasn’t actually funny now that she was witnessing it with her own eyes. Her little brother wasn’t meant for such hardships, but he bore them like a true and good ruler. “What is wrong?”

“I’m sending Theon to Pyke. He’s going to convince his father to let us use his fleet.”

Caryssa couldn’t believe her own ears. 

Robb was going to send Theon back to Pyke. 

She knew that her brother loved the fool like another brother, but surely he had to have some misgivings about the task he had set him. Sending home their hostage, because that is what Theon was even if no one acknowledged it, the only living male heir to the would-be King of the Iron Isles would be a grave miscalculation. It would be giving Balon Greyjoy exactly what he wanted. His heir. 

“Tell me again who exactly came up with this spectacularly terrible idea,” Caryssa requested, even though everyone knew that it was a sarcastic rhetoric remark. She knew which of the two had come up with the plan, and that is also why she was so set against it. “You cannot send him back. The Ironborn would eat him alive and spit him back out and only the Gods know what his traitor father would make him do to win back his crown.”

Robb rolled his eyes at his sister and she knew that he was completely disregarding her concerns due to her and Theon’s long standing antagonistic relationship. Everyone and their mother knew that the She-Wolf of Winterfell hated the Kraken of Winterfell. It was no secret that she had no trust for him whatsoever, but they thought that it was unfounded. Theon had never done anything particularly untrustworthy, so why didn’t she trust him, they all wondered. 

She didn’t even mistrust Theon completely. She mistrusted his family. The Greyjoys were notoriously bad men; traitors, pillagers, murderers…there wasn’t a good man amongst them. That is why she didn’t trust Theon, because she constantly worried about the man he could become and what that would do to her brother. 

Sending him back to his father would only tempt fate.

This war between the North and the South presented Balon with a rare and golden opportunity that she and her mother both agreed that the old Kraken would not allow to pass him by. Robb was distracted in the South, along with her and her mother, which left Winterfell to be held by Bran. A child was not equipped to deal with an attack if the Ironborn were really as unscrupulous as her mother and father had always painted them to be.

“You don’t want Balon Greyjoy for an ally.” Her mother warned, but Robb was quick to defend his decision.

“I need his ships. They say he has 200.”

“They say there are a million rats living in the sewers of King’s Landing. Shall we rally them to fight for us?” Caryssa snapped, losing her patience with her brother. He may be king, but that didn’t mean he should stop listening to the women in his life when they were giving him sound advice. Balon Greyjoy was a traitor, and he always would be. 

“I understand you both don’t trust Lord Greyjoy-“ Robb started calmly, but Catelyn, who was angrily rattling with this and that around her tent, snapped her head up towards her son, her eyes burning with the fierceness of the wolves that she had adopted into herself.

“We do not trust Lord Greyjoy because he is not trustworthy,” Their mother stated, sitting across from her son and beside her daughter, who seemed to for once be on her side. Catelyn was actually grateful for her support. Caryssa usually fought against her on Robb’s, or Jon’s or any other of the children’s, side, but now they were a mother and daughter united. It was a good feeling. “Your father had to go to war to end his rebellion.”

“Yes. And now I’m the one rebelling against the throne. Before me, it was Father. You married one rebel and mothered another.” Robb answered, and Ryssa shook her head, annoyed that her brother was being so…blasé about their situation and the wars their father had fought before him. 

Ned Stark hadn’t fought for freedom from a tyrant or Northern independence or even to put Robert on the throne. He had fought to save his sister and to protect what was left of his family. He didn’t want fame or glory, he just wanted to live to see his family safe and to go home at the end of it all.

She remembered waiting for him, both times, wondering if he would return at all, and finding different places to hide to cry so that her mother wouldn’t see. The Stark mother had tried so hard to remain strong for her children, and her eldest daughter didn’t want to add to her mother’s turmoil by crying and asking about her father constantly like the boys did. 

Caryssa had just wanted her father home and alive, and that’s how she imagined her littlest brothers felt. If they prayed to the Old Gods to bring them home the same way she had when she was a girl.

“She didn’t just mother rebels.”

“A fact you seem to have forgotten.” Catelyn added with a hiss, rising to her feet and turning her back on her son once more.

“If I trade the Kingslayer for two girls, my bannermen will string me up by my feet.”

“Then let’s go get them ourselves. We sneak into the Keep, and we take them. I know my way around. I can get us in and out without raising an alarm and then we can just crush them without having to worry about what they would do to Sansa,” Caryssa basically pleaded with her brother. She couldn’t bear the thoughts of what might be happening to her precious sisters at the hands of that wicked boy and his men. Even worse, his wretched mother. “We can’t sit by and do nothing to save them, Robb! What are we fighting for if not for them?”

“It’s more complicated than that!” Robb yelled, finally getting to the end of his tether. While he knew that his mother and his sister both meant well, and only wanted to have the girls back with them, he couldn’t handle them both attacking him at once. “You know it is.”

All three of them looked away from each other, unhappy that they were fighting amongst themselves, and when Catelyn sat back beside Caryssa, the younger woman took her mother’s hand and held it between both of hers. Whether it was to comfort her mother or to gather strength for herself, the older woman didn’t know, but she was glad for it nonetheless.

Sighing, the mother of six turned her blue eyes back to her son and finally spoke the words that she knew had been a long time coming.

“It’s time for me to go home,” Catelyn breathed, her chest feeling lighter for saying it. “I haven’t seen Bran or Rickon in months.”

“You can’t go to Winterfell.”

Caryssa and Catelyn both stared at the Northern King, the Young Wolf, in confusion. What on the Gods green earth did he mean that she couldn’t return home? 

“I beg your pardon?” 

“I’ll send Rodrik to watch over the boys because tomorrow you both ride south to the Stormlands.” Robb revealed, and Caryssa stood up, glaring down at her brother as she loomed over him.

“Excuse me?”

“Why in the name of all the gods…” Catelyn continued, rising with her daughter and placing a gentle hand on her shoulder to calm her. 

She only hoped it would work. Ned and Robb were the only ones who could quell one of Caryssa’s rages. Often, the mother had wondered where her daughter had gotten her rages from and her husband would explain that it was the wolf blood. The Starks often had a touch of it running through their veins, making them bolder and fiercer and quicker to anger than most. His sister, Lyanna, had it. So had Brandon. It had made them unpredictable and often they had lacked sense. Thankfully, her daughter had gotten her father’s sensibilities as well, balancing her warring natures out within her.

“Because I need you to negotiate with Renly Baratheon, mother, and you to negotiate with Stannis, Ryssa. If we are to win this war, we will need men and ships. Renly has rallied an army of 100,000. You know him. You know his family-” Robb explained, but his mother cut him off, before he could embellish on his sister’s side of things. 

“I haven’t seen Renly Baratheon since he was a boy. You have a hundred other lords-“

“Which of these lords do I trust more than you? More than my sister?” Robb pressed, climbing to his feet and moving to stand directly in front of the two bristling women. They were more than happy to aid him in the war effort when it meant that they would be by his side, but he needed them to do this for him. “If Renly sides with us, we’ll outnumber them two to one.”

“So what need will we have for Stannis?” Caryssa questioned, blue eyes flitting to gaze into blue eyes as her words brought her brother’s attention to her instead of their mother. “We won’t have need of his men.”

“His ships. Like you said, he has a whole fleet and he has the best claim to the throne. If we can get him and Renly to agree to peace, we can use them to take King’s Landing and who better to persuade a strong-willed war general than my tenacious elder sister,” Caryssa smiled at her brother’s ingenuity, pleased that he was blossoming in his role as King and Commander. He was seeing the bigger picture. If they all worked together against the Lannister than the lions wouldn’t stand a chance. “When they feel the jaws beginning to shut, they’ll sue for peace. We’ll get the girls back. Then we’ll all go home, for good.”

When Caryssa turned her eyes towards the ground, Robb grabbed her hand in his, gently squeezing it. He knew what she was thinking. Being married to the Kingslayer meant that Winterfell was no longer her home and she wouldn’t ever see it again, even if they managed to get the Lannisters to sue for peace.

“All of us.”

Choosing to believe him, Caryssa exchanged a look with her mother and they both sighed in unison, before nodding.

“We will ride at first light.” Catelyn informed him, her posture signaling defeat. 

Robb’s eyes flickered between them both, before he pressed quick, but firm kisses to both of their foreheads and then held them close to him by the backs of their heads. 

“We will all be together again soon, I promise.”

“You’ve done so well,” Their mother declared reverently, her voice strong, only cracking when she continued. “Your father would be proud.”

He would, but he would have wished that his son riding to war had been unnecessary. While her father had Robb trained in war tactics and battle strategies, she knew that Ned had never intended for his son to lead armies into war. Against small groups of wildlings, maybe, but not the King of all Westeros.

Robb nodded, releasing them both from his grasp before turning to leave.

“Give Lord Renly and Lord Stannis my regards.”

“King Renly and King Stannis,” Her mother corrected Robb, turning away from him to sit back at her table. “There’s a king in every corner now.”

Caryssa sat beside her mother and sighed.

The next few weeks would be extremely difficult and she was sure that she would need every ounce of her remaining sanity to get through them, but no matter how difficult the two Baratheon kings tried to make it for them, she would not falter in her pursuit for peace between them.

The she-wolf would not let her brother down.

Even if it killed her.


	24. Alliance Talks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "It is well that war is so terrible,
> 
> Otherwise we should grow too fond of it."
> 
> -Robert E. Lee

Caryssa loathed the sea. 

She preferred hard solid ground beneath her feet, instead of miles and miles of nothing. This is why she hoped that her foul mood would be somewhat excused by the men on the ship that she had hired to take her to Dragonstone. Even Rhaenyra seemed to be moody, probably hating the motion as much as she did.

Dacey shared her quarters with her, laughing at her when the she-wolves grumbled and bitched about the turbulent sea waves. 

She was a Mormont. They lived on a damn island, thrived on the bounties of the sea and Caryssa knew how much her friend loved the ocean. Dacey would breathe in that sea air and sigh with a smile on her face, while she frowned and tried to hold in her food from that morning. Wolves were not meant for the ocean. Krakens, yes. Fish, yes. Wolves, definitely not.

She was made for snow and forests, the North wind whipping through her hair and her skirts. Her father called it the wolf’s blood, that desire to be free, that burning in her veins for blood and justice, that fierceness that only few could rival. Her Aunt Lyanna had it, so had her uncle. Arya too. 

That’s why, despite having heard no news of her youngest sister since the purge of the Stark household from King’s Landing, she knew Arya lived. Arya was as fierce as a direwolf and just as clever as her elder siblings; she had found a way out of that rat’s nest, of that Caryssa was sure. She was most likely making her way north to find Robb and Mother and then they would only have to free Sansa.

It was with that thought alone, save Sansa, that Caryssa had entered Dragonstone with as docile a temper as she could muster.

She had met Stannis Baratheon once in her life and she had not liked him. He was too stern, too stoic. His face only gave away what he wanted it to and she found herself distrustful of it. A man who hid his emotions was an unpredictable one and it set her on edge. 

King Robert had been a man easy to predict. He wore his emotions on his sleeve and she knew how to work around them. Lord Renly had been much the same, though he was far less prone to the sudden bursts of anger that his elder brother had been. Stannis, the second son, the soldier, was not predictable at all and it made the wolf princess nervous.

Upon reaching Dragonstone, she had been ushered into the Great Hall with Dacey, Rhaenyra and her small retinue of Mormont soldiers at her side. Caryssa walked with the grace her mother had instilled into her from birth, though her eyes flickered around the room to find any and all exits and threats. If her time in King’s Landing had done anything to her, it had made her cautious of people. There were spies everywhere in the capital and she knew that there were also spies for the Queen, Baelish and Varys spotted all over the Seven Kingdoms too. It wouldn’t surprise her if one of those spies had found a place in Dragonstone.

“Lady Lannister, what brings you to Dragonstone?”

Caryssa’s eyes fell upon King Stannis from where he sat in his Lord’s chair at the front of hall, and curtseyed low. It would make him more willing to listen to her if she treated him like the King he claimed to be. 

“Lady Stark, please, if you would. I may have married a Lannister, but I am by no means Lady Lannister,” Caryssa asked and he nodded, hopefully more than happy to not mention her ties to that traitorous house. “And I was sent by my brother, King Robb of House Stark, to offer terms of an alliance.”

“Your brother wishes to take away a kingdom that belongs to me by right, why would I honor him with an alliance?” Stannis countered, and had Robb not anticipated that he would be difficult, perhaps he would have sent someone else in her place. Yet, from rumor, her brother knew how stubborn the Baratheon would-be king was and had sent her because she was the same.

“Because, Your Grace, you have no friends beyond the Stormlands. The Reach has sided with your brother, Renly, as has most of your bannermen, and the Riverlands are with us. The Martells will not back you because your brother was the one who started the war that lost them their princess,” Caryssa explained. She had thought about her arguments long and hard on their sea voyage, trying to turn her thoughts away from her sea-sickness and her imprisoned husband, and she had voiced them with Dacey and the older woman had deemed them wise arguments. She had faith that she could persuade Stannis into an alliance that would benefit them both. “An alliance with the North may be your only option and if we combine our forces, we can take King’s Landing by both sea and land and give you your rightful seat.”

Stannis seemed to be deliberating her words. 

Well, that’s what she thought, it was difficult to say what was going on behind those shielded Baratheon blue eyes. Dacey stood tall in her place just behind her and she was thankful for it gave her confidence. The She-Bear would keep her safe against any enemy, she knew, as she had not brought her bow with her from the ship. It would have been a show of distrust to come into his halls so heavily armed, so she simply had her knives strapped to her legs underneath her skirt and she refrained from resting her hands over them. 

Rhaenyra, sitting docile at her side, rubbed her face into Caryssa’s hip, sensing that her human needed to be comforted and reminded of her presence. Scratching the direwolf behind her ear, the princess kept the Stag King’s gaze.

“She has made a great case, My King, but her brother is not the Stark to make an alliance with.” 

Caryssa’s eyes finally lapsed onto the owner of the feminine voice and she had to work hard to school her face so it didn’t betray her shock.

Maester Luwin had books on the Red Priests of R’hllor, but she had never seen one in the flesh. The woman before her was dressed all in red, her hair the same startling shade of crimson as her clothes, and her eyes, though blue like Caryssa’s, shone with a fire inside that was unsettling to look at.

“My brother is King in the North, he is the only Stark you can make an alliance with.” Caryssa replied, not knowing what the woman meant, only that she would not like it.

“The fires told me of your coming, Caryssa Stark, daughter of Eddard Stark and Catelyn Tully, wife of Jaime Lannister, and they told me great things,” The Red Woman approached her and she felt Dacey tense behind her, though the Ryssa herself fought hard at maintaining a cool demeanor. “A wolf lady in a lioness’s skin, blood on the snow, the princess of ice and fire, Lyanna Stark reborn, but your fate will not end in your demise, like hers did. The Lord of the Light showed two great kingdoms, North and South, King Stannis of the South and…Queen Caryssa of the North.”

Caryssa felt laughter bubbling up inside her, but laughing in the face of this Baratheon King’s obviously most trusted advisor would not bode well for her, so she tamped it down within her, settling for an amused smile.

“I have two legitimate brothers after Robb. I will never be queen of anything. Your Lord of the Light must be wrong in this instance.”

“The fires only show me what was, what is and what can be, my lady.”

Knowing that she would get nowhere in an argument against this witch of the Red God, the young lady turned back to the King of Dragonstone and tried once more to persuade him to see their side of things. 

Robb needed ships and, once they had taken King’s Landing, they needed someone to take the Iron Throne, because no one from the North would sit as King (or Queen) of the Seven Kingdoms. The North was tired of Southern politics.

“Your Grace, that bastard Joffrey took my father’s head, slaughtered our household in the capital and keeps my sister hostage. The North has risen to avenge their liege lord and countrymen and to save my sister from sharing the same fate as my aunt did all those years ago,” The She-Wolf pressed, and out of the corner of her eye she could see Stannis’ right hand man, Ser Davos, she believed, looking down at his boots at the mention of both her sister and aunt. Good men hated the abuse of women. “The North fought alongside your brother in his rebellion against the Mad King-”

“To serve the North’s interests.” Stannis countered, and Caryssa nodded her head at the somewhat truthful statement. 

“Perhaps I must word this differently…the North shall back your claim. We will help you claim your throne and defeat your enemies. With our army at your back, you can restore the damage done to the realm by this war and the Lannister rule, but six kingdoms would surely be easier to oversee and deal with than seven. Do you not agree, Your Grace?”

Silence overtook the room once more, eyes flickering between the would-be Stag King and the Wolf Princess as the two stared the other down. Two pairs of blue eyes held each other, stubbornly refusing to break contact first. 

“I heard rumor that your mother, Lady Catelyn, was spotted riding towards my brother’s camp.” Stannis settled on, and Caryssa decided that honesty, being something she knew that Stannis would value, was the best course of action.

“My mother treats with Renly the same way I now treat with you. My brother sent her to persuade Renly into an alliance. It’s said he has a hundred thousand men in his army. No army in all of Westeros has those numbers. It would be foolish to not attempt to bring him on side,” Caryssa explained, though she didn’t know if Stannis appreciated her words. “She is also to persuade him to renounce his claim to the throne, to declare you the rightful king. I knew your brother during my time in King’s Landing. He had very little ambition. I don’t believe that staking a claim was ever his idea.”

“And who’s idea do you think it to be, my lady?” Ser Davos Seaworth, the Onion Knight, and supposedly Stannis’ Hand of the King, questioned. 

They made a picture, Caryssa thought, the Red Witch on his left and the Onion Knight on his right.

“The Reach has given King Renly their full support. I don’t believe that is mere coincidence,” Caryssa stated. The Tyrell’s had ambition, which was something every person in Westeros knew. They had climbed very high from the days when they were stewards for the King of the Reach, thousands of years ago. “As his army is far greater than your own, I dare say you may have to make some concessions in order to gain his allegiance.”

“And what do you propose?” Stannis seemed genuinely interested to hear what she had to say. Other lords and kings would not have given her the time of day to express her opinions and suggest actions to take. Maybe she could grow to like Stannis as a king, if not she already respected him. 

“Name him your heir,” Caryssa suggested. It seemed plausible in her mind. Renly would not make a great king, or a warlord, but the idea that he could be the next king may placate him. “Only until such a time as you have a son of your own or your daughter comes of age. It may appeal to his ego, if you also allow him to keep Storm’s End. At the very least, meet with him. Discuss an alliance as we are now. Be the better man, the better King, and the people will support you.”

She was afraid for a moment that she had overstepped, pushed a little too far with her words, but Stannis nodded and she almost sighed in relief. Were he a dishonorable man, he could have broken the guest right and had her killed. He was a king after all, and it seemed like most kings these days refused to acknowledge a person’s right to a fair and just trial. 

Her father hadn’t had one.

Though, if she had her way the little prick king, Joffrey, won’t have a trial either.

“I shall meet with my brother, but if he does not bend the knee, I will consider him a traitor and an enemy of my throne.”

“As would be your right as the true King of the Iron Throne.” Caryssa bowed her head slightly, agreeing to his terms and showing deference. She may be a new princess, but she was still but a princess. Stannis was the rightful King of the seven- six kingdoms.

“And what becomes of your husband once we win this war, Lady Stark?”

Caryssa was silent for a moment, knowing what Stannis would want and what her brother would want. Jaime’s head. Yet, she could not reconcile the two sides of herself that were at war. She wanted to see her husband hurt for the humiliation and the hurt he had inflicted up on her, but the other half of her mind reminded her of the love she bore him and of how much it would hurt to truly be parted from him now.

“My brother has not informed me of his plans for my husband further than possibly ransoming him back to his father in exchange for my sisters.” She answered honestly. 

Perhaps her brother sensed that she had grown to love her husband and did not want to cause her pain with whatever he had decided, but he truly had not told her what he had planned for Jaime beyond the end of the war.

And, truthfully, she could not think about her husband’s fate. She just couldn’t. There were other things on her mind that she had given more importance to.

Jaime would be safe until the end of the war. Her brother would put him to trial and the Gods would decide his fate, but this war they were fighting would most likely drag on for years. It had taken two years for the rebellion to over and done with, Caryssa had no doubts that this war would take just as long to resolve.

Especially in a war with four kings, five if Balon Greyjoy counted as a king.

“Ready the fleet. We leave for the coast at dawn,” Stannis declared, breaking the she-wolf out of her thoughts. He rose from his seat and approached the princess and her retinue, and it was only the second time in her life that Caryssa felt truly intimidated by a man as he loomed over her. “My lady, my wife will take you and your people to some rooms to rest until we leave.”

“We would be grateful for the rest, Your Grace.”

She looked back at Dacey and the woman nodded to her, gesturing for her men to follow them as Queen Selyse led them down a hallway past the lord’s table. 

It was only when she and Dacey were in the privacy of their shared room did Caryssa allow herself to relax. 

She had done her best to complete the task given to her by her brother, now the rest was up to her mother. If she could convince Renly to accept Stannis’ terms then they would be able to win the war far quicker and they would have peace in Westeros.

And they could go home.


	25. Concluding Negotiations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “War is what happens  
> when language fails.”  
> -Margaret Atwood
> 
> Caryssa remains in the Stormlands to conclude negotiations with Stannis and to help assist him in his meeting with his brother, Renly, but there are many things on her mind, including the terrible words of Melisandre.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N:
> 
> Hey guys!!
> 
> I'm baaaaaaack!
> 
> How great was Season 6? It was so good that it reignited my love for the show after Season 5 broke my heart. So, my love is back and my muse has returned and I am writing again! 
> 
> I hope you like this new chapter and that everyone is happy with it. I have so many more great plans for Caryssa and her story, especially after watching Season 6, and I hope you bear with me as we take this journey. 
> 
> I can't tell you when the next chapter will come, but I promise it won't take as long as last time.
> 
> Anyway, thank you all for your kind comments, and I hope you keep them coming!
> 
> Thank you guys,
> 
> S. A. L. Stratton.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE – Concluding Negotiations

“War is what happens  
when language fails.”  
-Margaret Atwood

Staring out of the window of her temporary room, Caryssa thought on the Lady Melisandre’s words. 

Why had she said that her God had shown her that Robb would not remain King and that Caryssa and Stannis would be Queen in the North and King of the South? 

Even if the worst should happen, and Robb fell in battle, she would still not be considered the next ruler of the Northern kingdom. Little Bran was next-in-line and Rickon after him. The she-wolf was a reluctant princess as it was, she had no desire to rule. Neither did Robb, but he had the title forced upon him. He couldn’t have refused his lords. He would have lost his army and they would have lost any hope of saving their sisters from the capital. 

The witch was wrong. 

Robb would win this war for their family, she knew it in her heart. 

“Your brother has done well in the war so far.”

Caryssa spun on her heel and turned to face the priestess. Dacey had gone to organize her men for their next departure, so Caryssa was alone in the room, with only Rhaenyra for company. The direwolf growled at their guest, the hackles of the wolf raised and her teeth were bared, but the red woman simply smiled in amusement. Grown men had cowered in fear at Rhaenyra’s display, a couple had even wept in fear of either Rhaenyra or Grey Wind, but not the priestess. 

The princess clicked her fingers, her four-legged companion withdrew to her side, but remained silent. Caryssa did not want to engage the woman, but it was clear that she had sought her out for a reason.

“Even you must know that every man’s luck runs out eventually. Your lord father’s certainly did.”

“My father was murdered by the bastard boy sitting on the Iron Throne. It had nothing to do with luck. He was murdered because he knew the truth,” Caryssa sniped, though Melisandre’s expression did not change. “My house will not fall.”

“I spoke nothing of your house,” The priestess’ eyes drifted over Ryssa knowingly, their gaze unsettling her and her wolf, who twitched nervously at her side. Caryssa rubbed the spot between Rhaenrya’s ears, trying to comfort her so that she wouldn’t…misbehave. Melisandre strolled further into the room, perfectly at ease, even with the large uneasy animal between her and the young woman she was speaking with. “Your Gods care little for the lives of men. Squire, knight, king or slave, they will take his life all the same.”

Caryssa bowed her head, her eyes squeezing closed as she felt her heart clench at the thought of losing her brother. That was what the woman was saying in her roundabout way, she knew. The woman had ‘foreseen’ the fall of her brother. 

It wouldn’t happen.

This was a war, Ryssa knew, and men were dropping like autumn leaves, but not her brother. Not Robb. She couldn’t allow that to happen. Caryssa would battle the Warrior himself, all of the Gods, if it meant her brother would survive this war.

With that renewed sense of determination, the she-wolf lifted her head, her blue eyes as hard as steel as they connected with the fiery gaze of Melisandre.

“If what you say is true, I will not allow it to come to pass.”

“We have little choice in the paths the Lord of the Light sets before us. We simply must walk them and discover our fate.” Her eyes had softened, she was trying to be kind, Caryssa saw, but it was not a kindness to tell a woman that she had no say in her life nor that she could not protect her brother from a terrible end.

“I decide my own fate.”

Thankfully, Caryssa was saved from the witch as Ser Davos and Dacey arrived to inform them both that the King Stannis and his fleet were ready to depart.

Melisandre was not joining them below deck, so the Stark princess was saved from the woman’s unnerving gaze, her knowing smirks and what other horrible predictions the witch could unleash upon her. 

What exactly the priestess thought she knew about Caryssa, the princess did not know, but it made her blood boil that she would presume to know what the daughter of Eddard Stark was really capable of. Her brother would live, or Ryssa would save him. 

She would or she would die alongside him. 

She would not live in a world without her brother. She could not live in a world without half her soul.

She did not want to.

Following Stannis onto his ship, she was sequestered in the King’s cabin upon Stannis’ request as he deemed it safer for her below deck. Caryssa sat opposite Dacey, raking her fingers through Rhaenyra’s fur as she watched as the she-bear sharpened her sword. 

It reminded her of when she would sit at her father’s side on the logs in front of the weirwood tree in the Godswood. He would sharpen his sword and she would read to him from one of the books Maester Luwin had borrowed to her for the day. Mostly, they sat in silence, just enjoying each other’s company. 

Those were the only moments of peace that Caryssa could remember from her childhood. Everything else was loud and filled with the rambunctious laughter of her siblings, which wasn’t a bad thing, but sometimes she had needed the quiet and her father would take her to the Godswood.

It hurt her more than she thought it would just to feel that sense of familiarity.

“That woman…what she said,” Dacey sighed, placing her sword to one side and setting her full focus on her charge. “It cannot be true.”

Caryssa did not bother to hide her worry from her friend, her fear. 

“They say the Red Priests and Priestesses of R’hllor can see into the future by staring into fire and she believes what the flames told her, to her very soul, I saw it in her eyes,” Caryssa took the she-bear’s hand in her own, grasping it tightly. “We cannot let it come to pass. You must promise me to do everything in your power to keep Robb alive.”

“I swore your brother an oath to live, fight and die at his side if it comes to that. I won’t break that promise.”

There was no denying the sincerity in Dacey’s words, or her face, and Caryssa didn’t doubt them either. She trusted Dacey, more than anyone outside of her family, and she knew that the older woman harbored some feelings towards her brother. If he was not already sworn to some faceless, nameless Frey girl, she would have been more than happy to call the Mormont woman her good-sister someday.

Just another future that would never come to pass. The only gods that Caryssa believed in were the Old Gods. She didn’t believe there was a ‘Lord of the Light’ and that he demanded sacrifices. No God could be so cruel.

Melisandre was a false prophet and Robb would be as fine as a King could be in times like these.

She hoped.

~*~

The ride to Renly’s camp was spent discussing terms with Stannis. It was not easy. Where Caryssa had been able to persuade King Robert to see reason because of how resemblance to her late aunt, Stannis had not shared his brother’s love for Lyanna Stark, or even Ned Stark, and he was a lot more difficult to negotiate with. Especially with his priestess at his side. Melisandre made things a lot more difficult, and uncomfortable, for Caryssa while in talks with the king.

Caryssa did find herself to be a good at it though, potentially securing Robb the North and all the lands above the Neck. 

They also discussed cementing their alliance with a marriage between their houses. The princess Shireen was of an age with her little brother, Rickon, and wars were often won with marriages, or so she’d heard it said.

It made her feel like such a hypocrite as she all but sold her little brother like livestock, having berated her mother and brother for doing the same to Arya. The only difference, she reminded herself, was that Arya had absolutely no desire to be some lord’s lady wife, but Rickon did want to be a lord, like Father, with a wife, even if he was too young to know what that would mean. She understood Robb and Mother’s reasoning a little better now, even if she did hate it still.

They discussed what would be done after Stannis’ ascension to the throne on the occasion of future conflicts. She was sure that should the South call the North for aid, if the cause was just, the North would answer as it had always done during Robert’s reign. 

The pair of them, she-wolf princess and stag king, almost had all of the details of their proposed alliance sorted through and decided, and Caryssa felt proud of herself for securing the alliance her brother sorely needed. Especially as it meant they did not need to get into bed with Balon Greyjoy.

Now, as long as her mother had managed to convince Renly to stop his foolery and renounce his claim, to support his brother, they could defeat the Lannisters almost too easily. In theory, anyway.

Stannis’ small group of soldiers, advisors and his Northern guests met Renly’s retinue, which included her mother, on a hill, and the tension was palpable in the air. The princess knew that these negotiations would not go as smoothly as others had.

~*~

Catelyn wasn’t surprised to see her daughter riding beside the king as they reached the meeting point, but she was surprised that Stannis hadn’t insisted on Rhaenyra being caged or left behind. Not many people outside of the North took well to the direwolves’ presence – grown men were often left uneasy by the giant animals, yet the wolf was where she could always be found, beside her mistress. 

It took the breath out of the older woman’s body to see her daughter look almost royal in her riding garb, at the head of the king’s men. It was a sight that reminded Catelyn that her eldest child had actually grown into a woman and it was almost painful for her to acknowledge it. Her son was a king and her daughter was a married woman negotiating with a different king. How times had changed from when her babes were in fact just that. 

‘She looks like Lyanna did at the tourney at Harrenhall,’ Catelyn mused, the image of her deceased good-sister and Caryssa seemingly merging into one.

It was her eyes. 

Though Caryssa’s eyes were Tully blue, like her own, Catelyn could see Lyanna’s iron will in her mirror image. The wolf’s blood, Ned had called it; it flowed through her daughter, just as it had Ned’s sister. Just like it did Arya. It was a steely determination that could give even the fiercest warrior reason to pause. 

Clearly, King Stannis had seen it too as he had not sent the young woman from his side. Her daughter, perhaps, had struck an alliance with the stubborn Stormlander, just as Robb had predicted she would.

Seeing Caryssa in such a way reminded Catelyn of Ned too. People had respected Ned, as Lord of Winterfell, as a soldier, or just as a man, and Catelyn thought that was what she saw in Stannis’ eyes when he briefly glanced at the young woman on his left. 

Gods be good, this meeting would go well and they would be able to return to Robb with pleasant news. 

Gods be good.

~*~

Caryssa nodded once to her mother in greeting, who gave her a brief, but relieved, smile in return, before her eyes lapsed onto King Renly.

He wore polished golden armor and a crown of gilded stag horns that made the she-wolf want to roll her eyes. All of his men were dressed too finely for soldiers expecting to see battle, too extravagant for their king to be taking this war seriously. 

It made her see that her opinion was most likely to be the correct one. Stannis would make the better king of six kingdoms, because he would not see it as a game. Renly…Renly would be beloved of the people, but he would lack the stomach for the hard decisions that would certainly come with the crown. It meant more than just a pretty accessory atop his head and a special chair to sit on. The crown, the throne, were a commitment to his people, symbols of the oath he would make to them and Ryssa didn’t believe that the youngest Baratheon fully understood that. 

Having the title, the crown and sitting on that iron seat would not make him a good king. It hadn’t for Aerys Targaryen, or for King Robert. 

Yet, the young princess bowed her head in deference all the same, falling back on Septa Mordane’s etiquette lessons in an uncomfortable situation.

“Lady Lannister, I had not thought to see you in the Stormlands.” Renly greeted, and Caryssa gave him a small smile.

“I had never been and it is just as beautiful as the late king told me. His Grace’s friendship meant a great deal to me, and it is for him that I am here to offer my aid to you both in the hopes you can reconcile your differences and we can all continue from here in friendship.” 

Renly seemed placated and pleased by her answer, so turned his attentions to his brother.

“Is that really you?”

“Who else might it be?” Stannis answered, and Caryssa felt as though she already knew how this meet would go just from their initial interaction.

“Well, when I saw your standard I couldn’t be sure? Whose banner is that?”

“My own.”

Caryssa had asked Ser Davos about that herself when she had seen it. A crowned black stag placed in the center of a red heart surrounded by yellow flames on a field of white. It was the new banner for House Baratheon of Dragonstone, Ser Davos had told her, and she supposed that the house had splintered into three different vassals now; House Baratheon of the Crownlands, House Baratheon of the Stormlands and House Baratheon of Dragonstone. 

It made Caryssa wonder how their father would have felt if he could have seen this. If it were her brothers? Ned Stark would be heartbroken to see that his sons were at war with each other and his house had been splintered. ‘The lone wolf dies but the pack survives,’ he had always told her, another nugget of wisdom he shared to all his children. 

“Suppose if we use the same one, the battle would be terribly confusing,” Renly considered, a playful smile on his lips that let everyone know that he was not taking this as seriously as he should. “Why is your stag on fire?”

“The King has taken for his sigil the fiery heart of the Lord of the Light.” Melisandre informed him, which did absolutely nothing to wipe the amusement from the younger Baratheon’s face. 

The young she-wolf herself did not particularly understand Stannis’ sudden conversion of religion, but she would not mock another of a different faith for their beliefs. 

“Ah, you must be this fire priestess we hear so much about. Oh, brother, now I understand why you found religion in your old age.” Renly mocked, and Caryssa glanced at the king at her side, and saw him tense at the implication. 

“Watch yourself, Renly.” Stannis warned, his voice sharp and in no way indicating that he was in a playful mood.

This did not stop his brother from continuing his childish ribbing.

“No, no, I’m relieved. I never really believed you were a fanatic. Charmless, rigid, a bore, yes, but not a godly man.”

“You should kneel before your brother,” Melisandre stated, and, for once, Caryssa agreed. Renly had the men, but not the correct temperament for king. “He’s the Lord’s chosen. Born amidst salt and smoke.”

Even Caryssa had to hold back a wince at that. Renly was already not taking them seriously, so why would she push the religion aspect?

“Born amidst salt and smoke? Is he a ham?” Renly teased, and this time Caryssa could not hold her tongue.

“King or not, he is your elder brother, you should show him some respect.” 

“My daughter is right. Listen to yourselves! If you were sons of mine, I would knock your heads together and lock you in a bedchamber until you remember you are brothers.” Catelyn added, and Caryssa was grateful for the support as technically she had spoken out of turn and, in her experience, not many men enjoyed being berated by women. 

“We all share a common enemy and that fact alone should be enough to unite us,” Caryssa urged, hoping that reminding them of the Lannisters, who actually held the Iron Throne, would put an end to the childish squabbling. Even her brothers, who were much younger than either of these men, never fought as pathetically as this. “They want us to fight amongst ourselves.”

“The Iron Throne is mine. By right. All those that deny that are my foes.”

The smile fell from Renly’s face. 

“The whole realm denies it, from Dorn to the Wall. Old men den it with their death rattle and unborn children deny it in their mothers’ wombs,” Renly seethed, surprising everyone with the venom in his tone. Perhaps he cared more for his brother than he acted, and being labeled ‘foe’ hurt him more than he would admit. “No one wants you for their king. You never wanted any friends, brother, but a man without friends is a man without power.”

It was that moment that made Caryssa felt like climbing down from her horse to fall to her knees so she could smack her head bloody against the ground in her frustration. Renly may have many friends, but they would not give him power. Why could he not see that the Tyrells would only use him to get more power for themselves, and that he had become nothing more than a puppet in their schemes. The whole realm knew how far the Tyrells reached and that they wanted to reach ever higher. It was no secret; so why did Renly allow it?

Then she remembered, her eyes drifting behind the young would-be king to the lord in the flowery armor.

For love. He did it for love.

“For the sake of the mother who bore us, I will give you this one night to reconsider. Strike you banners, come to me before dawn and I will grant you your old seat in the council. Lady Stark here has also negotiated for you to keep Storm’s End and I will even name you my heir until a son is born to me,” Stannis delivered his terms just as he and Caryssa had discussed, though the Northern girl was surprised that she had actually been listened to. He was a king, though one of many nowadays, and he did not have to take the advice of a nineteen-year-old woman who had no experience with wars. “Otherwise, I will destroy you.”

If it had been her, Caryssa would have taken the threat seriously. Stannis had fought battles and a war when he was still young enough to be considered a boy. He knew how to command an army; Renly did not. He was not a warrior or even a fighter; he didn’t even participate in tourneys. He was no leader and he had to know that. 

And yet he appeared unfazed.

“Look across those fields, brother,” They all glanced over the thousands of men that were amassed over the hill. The reports of Renly’s hundred thousand strong army appeared to be true. “Can you see all those banners?”

“You think a few bolts of cloth will make you king?” Stannis questioned his younger brother incredulously.

Numbers won battles. That was what she knew. Stannis was a great war commander, she knew that too, but even he could not best an army of one hundred thousand men on the field of battle with the force that he had. It made Caryssa wonder what back-up plan the older king had in place for when these negotiations failed, because they would. She had hoped that Renly would be more reasonable, but she could see that she had been wrong.

“No. The men holding those bolts of cloth will make me king.”

“We shall see, Renly,” Stannis retorted, nudging his horse forward a little, obviously preparing to leave. “Come the dawn, we shall see.”

The King began to ride away, most of his party, including Ser Davos, following closely behind. Only Melisandre and Caryssa, with Dacey and her men, tarried for a moment longer. 

“Look to your sins, Lord Renly, for the night is dark and full of terrors.” Melisandre warned, her words saying more than she actually had. It was a threat, Caryssa could see, and she looked towards her mother wondering if she had heard it too. 

With her eyes, she begged her mother to be safe, but her words were for her once friend. 

“I did my best to foster peace between you and your brother, Your Grace.” Caryssa spoke, but only once Lady Melisandre had ridden away towards the King, who waited for her at the bottom of the hill.

“And I am grateful for your efforts, my lady. You always were kind to me during your time in the capital. It is a shame that we meet again in such circumstances.” Renly offered, his tone more cheerful, like how it had been at the beginning of their meeting. He was being far more friendly towards her, and she was happy for it. Her quarrel was not with any Baratheon, except the boy pretending to be the son of King Robert.

“For the sake of our friendship and your life, I would ask you to consider your brother’s proposal. I would not wish to see you get hurt.”

“I have an army of 100,000 men, my lady. That is not a fight Stannis can win.”

“Battles have been won with worse odds. Please, just think on it.” 

Only when Renly nodded his assent, did Caryssa nod towards Dacey, indicating that they were leaving. With one last look at her mother, she pushed her horse into a light gallop in order to catch up to Stannis.

Negotiations had broken down and failed, but she hoped that Renly would see sense and come to his brother before dawn. She did not like to think about whatever it was that Melisandre would cook up to diminish his advantage against her chosen one. 

Silently, as she rode beside the king once more, she sent up a prayer to the Mother to watch other Catelyn, knowing that they were both in danger as they stayed in the two different camps.

Gods, she hoped Renly would put an end to this madness.

Only tomorrow would tell if the Gods would answer her prayers.

~*~

It was just before dusk when Caryssa was summoned to Stannis’ tent, and she did not go alone. Dacey, a couple guards and Rhaenyra accompanied her. The soldiers were antsy with anticipation as she passed them.

She swept into the room, just as Ser Davos was leaving it, and only the King remained inside, so she nodded to Dacey and indicated for the woman and the guards to stay outside the tent. Rhaenyra would be protection enough should she need it, which she doubted she would.

“You wished to see me.”

Stannis turned to her, having been studying his battle plans, and nodded stiffly, gesturing for her to take a seat.

“You claim that your brother doesn’t want to be King of the Seven Kingdoms.”

“I do.” Caryssa replied simply. 

“You swear it.”

“By the Old Gods and the New. My brother has no interest in the Iron Throne. We simply want Northern independence and to avenger our father.”

They stared at each other for a long time, both trying to gauge what the other person was thinking, where they both stood in the situation, both struggling to get a read on the other. They were similar that way; when they wanted to be, they were an open book, but if they did not want anyone to know what they were thinking or feeling, their faces were blanker than a fresh canvas.

Finally, Stannis broke the silence.

“You remind me of your father. He was a good man and a good soldier, but most of all, he was honorable and loyal. You could have ridden off with my brother, but you stayed at my side, even though you probably liked him better.”

No one every compared her to her father before he died. It was always her Aunt Lyanna. Now that Ned Stark was dead, all she ever heard was how alike they were as father and daughter. It hurt. It was like little knives stabbing into her chest over and over anytime someone mentioned his name, but it was nice too. In a way, it reminded her that her father was not gone, because she carried a piece of him within her and that would never die.

“The capital is a cesspit of liars and murderers and traitors, but your brother was always kind to me and I will always be grateful for that. But,” Caryssa paused, searching for the right words. “I know who my father would have given his allegiance to and who I believe would be better for the realm, and I don’t think that man is Renly. Your brother is a good man, but I do not believe that he will be the king the realm needs.”

There was another pause as Stannis mulled over her words, the pair of them watching as Rhaenyra took a slow trot around the tent until making her way back to her master, before he nodded. 

“I’m sending you back to your brother. Tell him that once my battle with Renly is done, he can have all the lands above Moat Caitlin and call himself King in the North,” Stannis stated, and Caryssa felt hope swell inside her. She had been successful and negotiated an alliance with the most stubborn Baratheon of them all, the uncompromising war commander. “Provided he swear me an oath of fealty.”

“And what kind of oath would this be?”

“The same oath that your father swore to my brother eighteen years ago.”

Caryssa knew the words her father had sworn to Robert, she knew how heavy they had weighed on him when deciding on whether to become his Hand of the King or not, and she wondered if they would weigh just as heavily upon her brother. 

She would help him shoulder that burden if she must.

“And in return for my brother’s loyalty?” Caryssa questioned, it was important that she took all the facts back to Robb.

“Once I have destroyed my brother and taken control of his forces, Stark and Baratheon will battle together once more to defeat our enemies.”

Caryssa nodded, a smile spreading across her lips at the thought of that little lion pissing himself as the combined might of the North and the Stormlands stormed the Red Keep to take his head and his throne.

“And Joffrey Baratheon will lose his head, you will have your throne and my family can finally return home,” Caryssa rose to her feet, clicking her fingers to summon her direwolf, who had taken to sniffing around the tent. It had surprised her when Stannis had not said a thing about the wolf who seemed to think she had every right to wander the king’s tent as though she owned it, but had had said nothing. “I will leave before nightfall. My king will be pleased with the news. It was an honor, Your Grace.”

“Safe travels…princess.”

Caryssa grinned and strode out towards Dacey and her men, who looked at her strangely. It took her a moment to realize that it had been a long time since she had smiled and had it been genuine, and when she did it began to feel foreign on her face. 

Dacey stepped towards her as her smile fell.

“What does the king say?”

“Once Renly is dead in the morning, we will have an alliance. Robb and Stannis will meet and discuss the terms set,” Caryssa informed them, as they walked towards the tents they had brought with them. Caryssa looked towards one of the Mormont soldiers. “Saddle the horses, I want to leave before nightfall. The sooner we are back in our own camp, the better.”

“Yes, princess.” 

She wouldn’t relax until she was back with her brother, with his armies and men she trusted. 

She probably wouldn’t even relax then.

She doubted she would ever be able to relax anywhere ever again.


	26. Shadow Creatures

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A little fluff at the beginning, some internal angst (as per usual), and a mother-daughter reunion.

"The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting."  
-Sun Tzu

They had left before nightfall like she had wanted, and had ridden throughout most of the night and the next morning, until Caryssa had decided that she needed the rest. She knew that Dacey and the men she was with probably could have kept on going, but she wasn’t in the same condition as they were.

So, they set up camp, made a meal with the supplies that Ser Davos had thoughtfully prepared for them and sat around trading stories and barbs as though they were all old friends, which Caryssa supposed most of them were. It was almost peaceful, like the old days when it was coldest in the North so everyone, Stark and servant alike, would spend most evenings together by the fire in the great hall. She missed those nights, where even she and Theon had got along.

It all seemed so long ago now.

“You know, princess, you are a lot less uptight then you make yourself look.” Calon, one of Dacey’s men, remarked, clearly comfortable enough, or just brave enough, to speak to a high-born lady in such a familiar tone. 

Caryssa barked out a laugh in surprise.

“I am not…uptight. We are at war, you know?” She said in defense of herself. When she was a girl she had been more obviously carefree. She had been more fun, but life had a way of taking that away from women.

“Aye, we are, but moments like this one are part of what we are fighting for, aren’t we? Small feasts around a fire with friends,” Willam, another guardsman, clinked his pewter goblet with Calon’s, both men with grins on their faces. They were brothers and were both older than Caryssa and Dacey, grey peppering their dark hair, but they still seemed to be just as youthful as their young companions. It made Caryssa smile. “The right to be free and happy.”

“Oh, you’ve gotten soft in your old age, Will.” Lady Melantha laughed, taking a swig of her wine. It was the only glass they were all allowing themselves to have, nobody wanted their wits to be compromised in the case of an attack from brigands on the road or a Lannister scouting party. It hadn’t put a dampener on their good moods, in any case. They were a day’s ride from their main camp and they would be returning to their King with great news, so the group were all pleased with themselves.

Lorry, another of the warrior women of Bear Island who had joined their war, sat on the other side of the Lady Melantha, who wasn’t a lady but all the men called her as such out of respect for her, sharpening branches into spare arrows while listening silently to the conversation around her. It seemed she was always making arrows for her quiver, and Caryssa’s.

“You can’t have too many arrows, princess. Would you like me to make you some?” Lorry had said to her once and after seeing how fine the arrows she crafted were, Caryssa could not say no.

Over the short weeks they had all travelled together, Caryssa had come to count these men and women as friends. Even Rhaenyra was completely at ease with them. The wolf had her head perched on her master’s lap, but her side was almost flush against Dacey, who had instantly began playing with the overgrown pup’s fur. 

Knowing that her ever faithful companion trusted the guards her brother had assigned her gave a lot of reassurance and she felt oddly calm as she listened to Melantha and Willam continue to rib and tease each other, a warm spark in both of their eyes that spoke of a long friendship spanning years.

Obviously, this meant something was about to go wrong. 

Rhaenyra lifted her head, her ears twitching this way and that as she tried to pinpoint the source of whatever it was that she was hearing. Sensing the tension in the direwolf, the conversations ceased and everyone was suddenly on edge. Hands rested on sword hilts or on bows or axes, and Dacey shifted closer to Caryssa, her body tense as if preparing for a fight.

The wolf sprung to her feet as two horses burst through the tree line, but didn’t bare her teeth, so the riders could only be friendly. Rhaenyra’s senses were sharper than the swords that Caryssa’s guard held, so she knew that if her wolf deemed the newcomers as no apparent threat than they were more than likely safe.

The men were still on edge, however, until their princess’ eyes focused on one of the riders’ faces beyond their hood.

“Mother?” Caryssa questioned, as the woman in question threw back her shroud and dismounted her horse, handing the reigns off to her rather tall, rather intimidating companion. Her mother looked flustered, an expression that did not often grace Catelyn Stark’s face. It filled the younger woman with worry. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

“King Renly is dead.”

“Stannis won the battle?” Dacey surmised, rather incredulously. The odds had not been in Stannis’ favor at all, but stranger things had happened. The haunted look in her mother’s eyes, repeated in her companion, spoke otherwise.

“There was no battle. It was a shadow. It had the shape of a man and it came into his tent and killed him,” Catelyn claimed, though she could see the disbelief and doubt in the eyes of all who hadn’t witnessed the assassination themselves. “It sounds mad, I know, I wouldn’t believe it if I had not seen it with my own eyes, but that is what we both saw.”

“It looked like Stannis.”

Caryssa turned her stare onto the giant of a woman. A scowl marred her fair face, and grief, something the young she-wolf knew much of, clouded sapphire eyes. The woman wore fine armor, a soldier from a good family, so she must have belonged to Renly’s army.

“Who are you?”

“Brienne of Tarth, princess.” She bowed at the waist, like a man, and the thought that Arya would like the strange warrior woman popped uninvited into Caryssa’s head.

“And you say the shadow looked like Stannis? You are certain of this?”

“Yes. A shadow entered King Renly’s tent and killed him, in the form of his brother, Stannis. I swear it.”

The princess’ eyes flickered towards Dacey, and the woman nodded her agreement.

Robb had to be informed as soon as possible. A bargain had been struck between Stannis and Caryssa, on Robb’s behalf, but none of that mattered if the Baratheon King had proven himself to be dishonorable. Kinslaying on a battlefield was one thing, one terrible thing, but to do so with witchcraft? The Gods would surely curse Stannis for such treachery.

“Calon, get on your horse and return to the King. Tell him that Renly is dead, possibly killed by Stannis.” Lady Mormont ordered, her man climbing to his feet immediately to do her bidding. 

“What about the rest of you?” Calon asked, mounting his horse, but looking to his commander and his princess for the answer. After Dacey, Calon was Princess Caryssa’s personal guard, not that she knew it, and he was reluctant to leave her behind.

“My mother and her companion need to rest. Tell Robb we will arrive in the morning.”

Calon gave his princess a nod, before turning his hose northward and galloping off into the distance, his companions watching until he was a speck between trees.

Caryssa turned to her mother with a heavy sigh, and finally embraced her. There was a lot of strength to be found inside a mother’s arms, and the young woman relished in being able to be held by hers once again.

“How long will you stay with your son’s camp, my lady?” Brienne questioned, leading the two horses to the makeshift stable Lorry had created out of two trees with interweaving branches. 

“Only long enough to tell Robb what I have seen. After that, I will leave for Winterfell,” Caryssa felt Catelyn glance at her, but she had guessed that her mother would want to return home to the boys as soon as possible. “My sons need me. Caryssa will come with me.”

“No, I won’t. When we’ve defeated the Lannisters, when Robb takes King’s Landing, he will need me.”

Her mother stared at her.

“We need you in Winterfell-”

“You can run Winterfell with Maester Luwin’s help, Mother,” Ryssa shook her head, “but out of every one of Robb’s lords, his generals, his men, I am the only one who has lived in Kings Landing. He needs me.”

Without waiting to hear her mother’s next argument, the princess turned and clicked her fingers for her direwolf and walked into the woods.

“Where are you going?” Catelyn called to her daughter, without reply.

“The priestess told her something,” Dacey said, earning herself the attention of the Lady of Winterfell and the female knight. Lorry, Lady Melantha and William, they had all heard this story so did not listen to its retelling, having been disturbed enough the first time Dacey had told them. “She gave her a prophecy, one that the princess has been unsettled by. You won’t change her mind about staying at the King’s side. She’d sooner die than be parted from him.”

“Just give her some time, milady,” Lorry advised, still sharpening her arrowheads. “She’s safe enough with that wolf at her side.”

True enough, Catelyn thought to herself. She thought of that night in Bran’s room, when the assassin had stolen in and tried to kill her son. He might have succeeded if his wolf hadn’t tore open the man’s throat. Grey Wind fought beside Robb in battle, she knew that to be true too. Rhaenyra would sooner rip a man’s arm from its socket than allow Caryssa to be hurt, but it didn’t mean Catelyn had to like her daughter stomping off into the woods unaccompanied.

‘The lone wolf dies, but the pack survives.’

Gods, did Catelyn wish Ned was here.

~*~

Rhaenyra stayed close to Caryssa’s side as she marched through the trees.

Her mother hadn’t caused her to be upset, but she was. 

The thought of leaving Robb on his own, the lone wolf, even among his most loyal and honorable bannermen, was repugnant. It would have been unthinkable before the witch’s prophecy. Now? Now she would not entertain the idea, despite the edge of the battlefield being no place for her.

Robb would not abandon her if she needed him, so she would not be returning to Winterfell, not until the war was won. 

Caryssa did miss Winterfell. She missed her brothers and all the other people that made the castle a home, but with her mother returning, and Rodrik too, Bran and Rickon would be fine without her for however long the godforsaken war lasted. Then, they would all be together again.

Except for Father.

Thoughts of what had become of her father’s body crept into her mind uninvited and unwelcomed, but she could not stop them. 

His head was probably mounted on a spike, tarred and unrecognizable.

Gods, I hope Sansa never sees it.

They had heard that Sansa had been there to witness Lord Eddard Stark’s end. Caryssa could think of nothing more terrible the Lannisters could do to her than to inflict such pain, such horror, on her sweet, baby sister. 

Sansa was not like her. The auburn-haired princess wore her heart on her sleeve for everyone to see. She hadn’t learned how to control her emotions, to hide the ones she did not wish her enemies or even her friends to see.

She would. Sansa would learn many ways to protect herself while being held hostage by the lions, Caryssa knew, as Arya would learn wherever she was. Her baby sisters would be changed forever if they won the war and were able to return home, and it made her sick.

The woman paused for a moment, a hand flying up towards her mouth. Her body lurched towards a tree and hunched over.

No, that was actual sick.

Why were the Gods punishing her?

After her measly meal had finally finished leaving her, Caryssa straightened and looked over at Rhaenyra. The direwolf watched her, completely unfazed by her master’s sudden bout of sickness, but quirked her head at her.

“Stop looking at me like that,” The woman ordered, and the wolf just huffed. “You’ll keep this a secret, won’t you? There’s no need to worry anyone.”

Rhaenyra just blinked, stood and turned back towards camp, and that was response enough. They were cutting their walk short, and there was to be no argument about it.

“Who is in charge here?” Caryssa muttered, but followed the direwolf anyway, knowing deep down that she did not have the energy to keep stomping off into the woods.

She needed to rest.

~*~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey Guys!
> 
> Sorry this took so long and is so short, but I got stuck (writer's block/irl issues) and wasn't sure where I wanted this chapter to go, so I cut it short and I'm changing the direction of the next chapter to try and stop being so stuck. If it sucks, I'm really sorry. I know it's gonna be disappointing having to wait this long and it's just not the most brilliant thing ever, but I'm gonna try to do better with the next chapter, I promise!
> 
> Let me know what you thought in the comments, and give me some kudos' if you want to. 
> 
> I love you guys so much for sticking with this story and to all the new readers, you guys are awesome too!
> 
> Love S.

**Author's Note:**

> Please be kind. Fragile writer.


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